


Flare

by apparitionism



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firehouse, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 57,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2052912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apparitionism/pseuds/apparitionism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So fires are fires... and people who get caught up in them may get burned. Or not. We'll see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So over on tumblr, [amatterofcomplication](http://amatterofcomplication.tumblr.com) made [this manip](http://amatterofcomplication.tumblr.com/post/89907496386/engine-13-for-races-accidental-prompt-myka), for which I wrote a goofy little [commentfic](http://apparitionism.tumblr.com/post/89924218430/amatterofcomplication-engine-13-for-races). But then there seemed to be a longer AU situation to be explored… and it begins here. Amatterofcomplication promises more images to come, and she is also in large part directing the direction of the words. I am but a humble junior minion scribe who puts hands to keyboard in support of [Race’s](http://racethewind10.tumblr.com/) accidental prompt: Myka likes books, and being a hero...

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a cat, hero.”

Myka keeps hearing those words echo in her head as she stalks through the neighborhood, armed with “found cat” flyers and a roll of duct tape. “Don’t call me hero,” she’d said to Steve Jinks, once she’d got herself down from the tree. Herself and the kitten, who was starting to yeep in a startlingly high pitch. “Where are those kids, anyway?”

“Ran off the minute you started climbing,” Steve chuckled.

The truck was out only because of a false alarm anyway, but then the kids yelled to them about the cat—kitten—in the tree, and there they _were_ , and they were firefighters, for heaven’s sake, so they stopped—and now there’s this tiny cat at the firehouse, and Trailer’s whining and giving it looks that say “tapas?” and so Myka’s making her way around this neighborhood—which, she’s now noticing, is starting to gentrify: that bookstore, hadn’t it used to be one of those dark, run-down places? Myka thinks of those as more interesting, really, but she also has to concede that this one seems more inviting, now that it’s brighter. There’s a window display of children’s books, another of young adult novels, and Myka thinks that’s good, that’s smart—and then she thinks bookstores, people who like books like cats, right? And she thinks she’ll step in—not to buy a book, she admonishes herself, because there are too many piles of those in her house already, ones that she’s in the process of reading, ones that she saw and just had to have, ones that she keeps meaning to get through, honestly, at some point (there’s this one about the history of table manners that she just knows is going to be fascinating, but she never has _time_ )—anyway, not to buy a book, just to ask if she can hang a flyer by the register or maybe there’s a bulletin board or maybe she could even put it in the window—but that display is lovely, and she would hate to block it with her slapped-together flyer.

And so she goes in. A bell jingles as she pushes at the door. Her first breath inside, it smells right, and that’s a little surprising—there is paper here old enough to break down, despite the newness of the store’s façade and display.

She hears, “One moment!” from somewhere in the back of the store. A woman’s voice—a British-accented woman’s voice, and Myka thinks, just at the edge of her mind, that it’s somehow familiar?

Then the woman emerges from behind a shelf, and Myka gulps.

It’s H.G. Wells. And though Myka doesn’t, or didn’t, have as much history with H.G. Wells as most of the others at the firehouse did—still, Myka was already there when it happened, and she remembers it all too well. And she is now feeling like a fool for walking in here (even though how could she possibly have known?) because H.G. Wells had—okay, well, implicitly, at least—made it very clear that she wanted nothing more to do with any of that. With any of them.

H.G. sees Myka. Then H.G. sees _that it’s_ Myka. “Lt. Bering,” she says. It isn’t quite cold, but it’s very, very neutral.

 _This is not my day_ , Myka thinks. _This is clearly somebody else’s day_. She says, “Hi. I’m… I had no idea you worked here. I’m sorry. I’ll leave.” And she’s trying to back out, but she bumps into another display, this one containing stuffed-animal versions of characters from children’s books. One animal tumbles off its shelf immediately, and Myka hopes that’ll be the end of it, but she watches in almost morbid fascination as every single one seems to make up its own mind to teeter and then fall… oh, look, a pig; now a bat; now an elephant, bear, giraffe… surely there can’t be _that many_ different kinds of animals?… Myka dares a look back at H.G.

H.G.’s got her hand up at the crown of her head, pulling at her hair a little, like she’s trying to get her brain tuned correctly. Myka registers, then, that her hair is down… Myka’s seen it down only once before, because just like firefighters, EMTs can’t afford to have anything obscuring their vision. H.G.’s hand is still in that hair when she repeats, “Lt. Bering.” The hand drops. “Myka. Why _are_ you here, then?”

Myka starts to say, “Because…” but then she realizes the mess she’s made. She starts picking up stuffed animals, trying to place them back where they’d been before she blundered around like the clumsy giraffe she is. H.G. comes to help her, but she’s limited in what she can do, because she’s holding a book gingerly in one hand. A very old book, from the looks of it… Myka catches a glimpse of the cover, and she has to catch her breath. “Is that… the Forster biography of Dickens?”

“Just the second volume, nearly restored now,” H.G. says, distractedly, but then she looks more closely at Myka. Not quite suspiciously, exactly, but she’s clearly not comfortable. “How do you know that?”

Myka tries not to sound too eager, or more accurately, she supposes, too crazy: “I’m a Dickens fan. That sounds silly, but—” And Myka doesn’t know what to say next. She’s looking at a book restorer, in a bookstore, and she’s sure she came in here for a reason that had nothing to do with that, but…

“So can I help you?” H.G. asks after a moment.

“With what?”

“With a book?”

“Right. A book. I have to say, that Forster looks amazing… but no, I promised myself I wouldn’t.” She finally kicks back in. “I actually came in because… well, I got a kitten out of a tree today, but the kids who told us about it—they probably put it up there anyway—disappeared. Just a few streets away from here, so I figured I would try to find out whose it is.”

“I assure you, it isn’t mine. I don’t even—”

“No, no, I’m just—” Myka leans down, picks up her flyers and duct tape—she dropped them during the stuffed-animal fiasco—and then offers a flyer to H.G. “Maybe whoever he belongs to, maybe they come in here and would notice a sign? Somebody’s probably missing him. He’s just a baby. They can call, or they can drop by the, uh—” She fumbles and is sure she’s making everything ten times worse.

“Firehouse. You can say it. I know it still exists.”

Myka drops her eyes. Wants to drop through the floor. “Of course you do,” she says softly.

And she’s ready to slink away when the flyer leaves her hand: H.G. has taken it from her. “I’ll put the flyer up,” she says. “And we’ll see about the cat.” She’s looking at Myka in a way that suggests a minimal thaw.

Myka is eminently relieved. It gives her the ability to start talking again, though once she does, she’s horrified at what comes out: “And hey, if it turns out he’s a stray, maybe you could even consider taking him, because bookstores and kids and cats, right?”

H.G. pauses, then says, “Right. I’ll let you know.”

This is a dismissal; Myka can feel it. All right. Fine. She’s being sent away. As she’s heading for the door, she says, “Okay. Well. Nice to… see you. Because it’s been a while, so… and so. Probably will be a while again. Unless you want the cat.” She doesn’t look at H.G. again as she pushes her way out.

Once she’s on the sidewalk, she leans against a light pole. She thinks she might as well just hit her head repeatedly against it. H.G. Wells doesn’t want the cat. H.G. Wells doesn’t want anything to do with anything that’s ever touched the firehouse. H.G. Wells had left the firehouse; left her place in the ambulance alongside her partner, William Wolcott; left everything about fires and rescues and saving people, when she’d lost her daughter, Christina. Wolcott has since told Myka that H.G. had been meticulously certain that she could have saved Christina, with her EMT skills, if she had only been home, if she hadn’t taken an extra shift, if she had left immediately when that shift ended, if if if. Wolcott said she’d recited those ifs, perfectly rationally, for the short time she’d tried to keep working, after it happened—clearly pretending that she, and her entire life, hadn’t changed. Then she was gone.

“She’ll be back,” Steve had tried to reassure Wolly.

“No,” Wolly told him.

“No,” their chief, Jane Lattimer, had agreed.

And “no,” Myka had said quietly to herself. She hadn’t known H.G. all that well, before, but she’d liked her. She’d liked, in particular, how she’d talked about her daughter. Myka had looked forward to hearing her talk about her daughter, about anything at all, really, because H.G. was smart and would mention what she was reading or her thoughts on emerging economies or airport security or that Trailer really should reconsider his decision to occupy her spot on the sofa, and Myka could focus on that and not have to think about why she herself was at 13 in the first place. It wasn’t a reason to get up in the morning—fighting fires was still her reason to get up in the morning, no matter what—but Myka did like how H.G. talked. And what H.G. had become, afterward, how she’d talked then… no, she wasn’t coming back.

And Myka, bumbling around just as much with her words as with her body, has just reminded her of that horrible time. Brought it all up, probably made her relive it. Yes, hitting her head repeatedly against a light pole sounds like a really good idea. She wishes she could send H.G. an apology card or something… but that would be _yet another_ boneheaded reminder. She decides that the best she can do is to stay as far away from this neighborhood, and certainly this bookstore, as she possibly can. And then she wonders, just for a moment, why that thought feels so very, very wrong.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

People drift into the bookstore, drift out. Some buy, some don’t. Some ask Helena about authors, titles, “what are eight-year-olds into?” Helena puts books in bags, wraps a restored Wharton to be shipped to Toronto, says “Harry Potter, yes, still.” She glances occasionally at the flyer describing the lost kitten… no, the found kitten.

She had considered not putting it up at all, because she knew that every time she saw it, she would think of Lt. Myka Bering and the firehouse. But if she had thrown it away, it would have loomed even larger, as something she had thrown away because she could not bear to look at it. So she had decided to find out whether she could bear it.

So far… so far, she can. She can be cold to it, can ice up just a bit when she looks in its direction, and then a bit more when her eyes find the instructions regarding whom to call at Firehouse 13.

She can think about Myka Bering, a little, with less coldness. She didn’t know Myka at all well, before; Myka had not yet become a fully integrated part of the firehouse by the time… all right. All right. Think just about Myka Bering, then, think about how she’d knocked over the display of animals, the horror on her face, and then how the horror had been replaced by avidity at the sight of the Forster. Helena has never before seen anyone look like that when confronted with the middle tome of a three-volume biography of Charles Dickens published in the 1870s, of that much she is certain.

The day might have turned into interminable hours that kept her waiting for closing time, bedtime, a welcome sleeping pill; months ago, if she had been reminded like this, it would have. Today, though, she finds that six o’clock arrives when it should. Six o’clock arrives, and on the dot of that hour, so does Caturanga.

“My dear successor!” he exclaims as she closes and locks the bookstore’s door behind him.

“My respected predecessor,” she responds. “Are you prepared to lose this evening?” She lets him precede her to the back storeroom, then up the stairs to her apartment.

“Lose?” he asks, with a note of bewilderment. “I never lose. I merely occasionally play in such a way as to determine whether and how you have improved.”

A year ago, she had told him to stop saying this to her, because he had always said it to Christina, too. He’d refused, and it had taken her many, many months to understand that he was right to do so.

“Any interesting volumes?” he asks her as she puts the kettle on. He begins to set up the board. He uses the Alice set, the Tenniel-based figures. This, too, he had refused to stop doing. Helena had wanted to pack them away, mummify them; he had pulled them out, set them up, and sat before the board.

He had sat quietly, waiting, as she cycled through crying, not crying, crying again. Then he prompted, “Ponziani Opening.” She had been trained for chess from a young age; she had been training Christina as well. Christina would have done exactly what Helena did, automatically: reached out and moved her pawn to e4. Caturanga moved his pawn to e5. She moved her knight to f3; he his to c6.

Tonight she says, “I’ve just about finished the Forster.”

He clucks. “I don’t see why you’ve spent so much time on it. Where are you going to find someone who wants only a beautifully restored middle volume?”

“One could begin with this one,” Helena says. “Find the others later. Or surely someone needs it to complete a set. In any event, you saw the condition that leather was in. It dared me to undertake the task. Dared me, I tell you.”

“Yes, how well I know: you and a challenge.”

He’s right of course; the bookstore itself stands as proof. Caturanga had owned it for decades, and he had intended to continue running it for as long as he could. It was sliding gently into shabby irrelevance, but then, after… Helena had needed a job. And Helena had needed a project.

She and Christina had lived above the bookstore during almost all of Christina’s young life, for the rent was cheap, and the store was only two neighborhoods removed from the firehouse. After, Helena had wanted to move out as soon as she could, but Caturanga hadn’t let her. “You have a lease!” he’d declared. “I will sue you!”

She hadn’t really believed he would, but, worse: “And I will also allow you no further access to the restoration laboratory!” It wasn’t a laboratory; it was just a room. But it did contain tools and chemicals and other things that it would have taken Helena far too long, and far too much money, to amass for herself. And the meticulous work of restoration, which had been simply a hobby before, suited her even more, after. She could bend over a book and find that when she looked up again, neck and shoulders aching, hours had gone by.

“You spend all your time here,” Caturanga had said. “And you need employment. Let us formalize the arrangement: you will work for me.”

Helena could have said no. Everything about the bookstore—the smell of the books and chemicals, the buzzer that sounded when a customer opened the door, even the dust coating the shelves full of books that no one in this neighborhood would ever want to buy—everything reminded her of Christina. But she had already shed the familiarity of the firehouse.. and the effort that it would have taken to shed this, too? It was beyond her.

And after some weeks, over the chess board, Caturanga had said, as if they two were simply resuming a previously adjourned conversation, “What is it they call it in big business? Oh yes, the ‘succession plan.’ We shall soon draw up our succession plan, my dear, and you shall begin to purchase the store from me, share by share.” And then he’d given her a look that was almost sly. “If you believe you have the capacity to make it profitable, that is.”

She knew exactly what he was doing, but she leaned toward him, over the board, anyway. She said, “I will begin tomorrow morning.”

By the time he arrived at the shop the next day, the transformation was underway: she had disconnected the entry buzzer and installed a gentler bell. She began cataloguing the condition and probable value of the older books, in preparation for listing them for sale online. She consulted other bookstore owners, marketers, publishers, to determine how she might start to steer the listing ship of a store toward profit.

She also had reached a point at which she could consult herself, her own heart. She imagined telling Christina that the bookstore was to be theirs. What would Christina have wanted? Fortunately, the answers from the other owners, the marketers and the publishers, lined up perfectly with what she was sure would have been Christina’s answer: a place for Christina herself, for her friends and classmates, a place that could at first open the world of books to them, then lead them to build confidence in that world as they learned more and more.

Now, tonight, as she sits with Caturanga and drinks tea and plays chess—she has refused the Ponziani Opening this evening—she has not yet fully met the challenge he set for her. But she is well on her way. And this day has shown her that she is on her way to meeting another: that posed by the memory of her past at the firehouse. “I was visited by a firefighter today,” she tells Caturanga, as casually as she can.

“Really?” he says, equaling her casual tone. “Was there a fire?”

“No. There was a cat.”

He laughs. “All right, my dear, you have got me. This is a joke, correct? And what did the firefighter say to the cat, or vice versa?”

Helena laughs too. “No, the firefighter _found_ the cat. In a tree, and came in looking for its owner.”

“Obviously the firefighter has never met _you_ before. The idea that you would own a cat… can you imagine…” Caturanga laughs again, this time as if he’s the one who’s told an extremely funny joke.

Helena tries to look at him sternly. “The firefighter _has_ met me before. She didn’t know _I_ would be in the bookstore.”

“Ah. Well. But you sent her on her way, hat—or cat—in hand, I assume. Given that you have no cat.”

“Did you not notice the sign?” Helena asks.

“What sign?” He is concentrating on the board.

“The sign about the cat.”

“Where?” He moves his knight—but no, he keeps his fingers on it, moves it back.

“In the bookstore.”

“A sign about a cat in the bookstore. No, I don’t believe I did.”

“You walked right past it!” She would say that he can be unobservant… but he is so rarely unobservant.

He shakes his head—possibly at Helena, possibly at his knight. “I walk past a great many things.”

“I’ll have to move it. See that it is placed more prominently.”

“A flyer regarding a lost cat?”

“A found cat.”

“Nevertheless, your investment in the situation seems…”

And now Helena is embarrassed. “I’m afraid I was… abrupt.”

“You haven’t seen them, have you? Your former colleagues. In some time.” This he says in a tone Helena has come to recognize: he is putting on his kid gloves.

“No.”

“And is she well, this former colleague?”

“I suppose so. I didn’t know her, before. She had barely arrived, only a few weeks prior.” Helena thinks for a moment about Myka, tentatively thinks back, probing for what she does remember. “She had had to transfer. An accident involving a man she worked with, I think…”

“An accident that was her fault?”

“No, not like that. She had been… involved with him.” Wolly had told Helena this, for Wolly knew everything, for everyone told Wolly everything. They could hardly help themselves; he would look at them with huge blue-gray eyes made of understanding, and they would crave that understanding for themselves. Helena clears her throat, changes the subject. “She knew the Forster.”

“Knew the Forster, you say?”

“Yes, I had it in hand. She knew it on sight.”

“The firefighter knew the Forster? How unusual.”

“Well, I was an EMT,” Helena feels compelled to point out. “I’d have known the Forster.”

“You, my dear, were certainly no ordinary EMT.”

And Helena vocalizes a thought that she has not until now put words to, a thought that has been filtering toward the top of her mind since earlier today: “Perhaps Myka Bering is no ordinary firefighter.”

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Myka is reading the manual. The PUC-Aerial manual, that is, because she is always chagrined when Artie knows more about the trucks and their equipment than she does. That Artie has been in this firehouse for thirty years, twenty of them as a firefighter and now as a general maintenance guru, is not the point. The point is that he knows more than Myka does. And that is a state of affairs that Myka knows how to remedy.

She’s trying to concentrate on that manual and not on the activity around her: Claudia and Steve are watching (arguing about) some kind of sports on television, Wolly is trying to tell Claudia that as the junior paramedic, she really should be gathering up supplies to restock the rig (which always means that he’ll give up and do it himself in three… two… and there he goes), Amanda is yelling at Todd to get in here and  make some food because he is the probie and it is his job (and she did not leave the Marine Corps just so she could be the lucky one to cook for a bunch of ingrates, Probie!). Trailer is yipping, as if in support of Amanda (because he did not leave the Marines either, for any reason, except possibly he would have, for biscuits), and Myka wishes she had ear plugs or the good judgment it would have required to set this brick of a manual down someplace other than here.

Liam ambles by, talking about how impressive it was, the way Artie managed to get the ladder swinging perfectly again and won’t it be easier now that they don’t have to jiggle the controls every time—and Steve looks up instantly from the TV. Myka pouts a little more about Artie’s superior knowledge, but she also knows she’s going to end up having to do something about the Liam/Steve situation at some point. The Chief had made it clear: Myka’s truck, Myka’s firefighters, Myka’s problem. Myka vastly prefers that other people’s crushes, in fact crushes in general, remain other people’s problems and not become hers… but the dynamics of the truck matter more than Myka’s comfort. She just wishes the Liam/Steve situation were actually a situation, so that she could deal with it and get it over with. If they would just move forward or knock it off altogether… because she can’t very well order them to stop looking at each other.

Todd comes running in, and Amanda says “Finally!” in that tone that (only Myka knows) means she actually thinks he’s doing all right, for a probie—and of course now Claudia looks up instantly from the TV, because it’s Todd, and thank god _that_ isn’t Myka’s problem. That is Chief Lattimer’s situation to deal with, if it ever becomes a situation, which… why does nothing ever actually become a situation in this place, anyway? But Todd hasn’t come in to do anything Amanda wants him to, at least not immediately, because he stands, shifting from foot to foot, next to Myka, and he says quietly, “Lieutenant? There’s a woman here to see you.”

Myka looks down at the manual. Yes, she knows _how_ to remedy the state of affairs characterized by the fact that she knows less than Artie does. What she doesn’t know is _when_ she’s going to ever find the time to put that _how_ into practice. She sighs. “What’s it about?”

He turns pale. “I didn’t ask her. Should I go back and ask her?”

Amanda comes and grabs him by the collar. “No! Myka can handle her own woman problems.”

“I don’t have any woman problems,” Myka says.

“That in itself is a problem,” Amanda says to Myka, “but if I don’t get dinner soon, _I_ am going to be all your woman problems rolled into one, so help me god.”

“Insubordination,” Myka tells her, but she leaves the manual behind and stalks to the garage.

Where she is completely astonished to find H.G. Wells.

Who is standing as far away from the ambulances as she possibly can, almost leaning against the far wall, as if she could sink through the cinder blocks and get still farther away. Myka goes to her and tries to place herself so that H.G. won’t even have to look towards the ambos. Myka would move a truck to block them if she could; H.G. looks that unsettled. And Myka feels that she doesn’t want H.G. to be unsettled. Not here, not anywhere. So she tries to speak very, very casually, saying a calm, “Hi,” but then she doesn’t know what to say next, so she falls back on an “um,” and a “what can I do for you,” and she realizes as she says them that her face is not acting casually at all; her face is threatening to break into an enormous smile, because H.G. is really standing right here in front of her in the firehouse.

H.G. takes a large breath. “I was thinking. Or, I have been thinking. About what you said, when you were in the shop.”

“About what I said about what?” Myka can’t remember any of the words she said; or rather, she’s tried not to remember, because it was that embarrassing. But she is unaccountably warmed by the idea that H.G. has been thinking about her. Or, no, about what she said. What she said, that’s all.

 “Well. About Dickens.”

“Oh. Oh! Really?” This, Myka thinks, is great news.

“Well. Yes, because it was unusual to hear—”

Myka jumps in. “Sure, people don’t come in every day and say—”

H.G. interrupts, but it’s an eager interruption, not a rude one, “No, they certainly don’t. So as I said, I’ve been thinking. And then I thought that you might perhaps have thought me dismissive.”

Myka of course had thought her dismissive. “Of course not,” she says. “I just sprang it all on you like that. I mean, of course you didn’t immediately feel like you—”

“Exactly,” H.G. says. “Not immediately. But now that I’ve had time to think, I think it would be a good idea if I were to—”

And of course, at that moment, the alarm resounds with its disruptive buzz-clang, and Leena’s voice comes over the antiquated PA system. “Truck 13,” she says. “Ambulance 12—”

****

Leena’s voice immediately jolts Helena back in time.

Myka touches Helena’s arm, squeezes it surprisingly gently under the circumstances. She shouts, as she whirls into action, “See Leena! See Leena about Dickens!” and all Helena can do is nod before the chaos-but-not-chaos begins, and she had forgotten, genuinely forgotten, how quickly everything does happen when Leena’s voice rings out, and some people she’s never seen before and some she has are loading up and running, and she is trying but not trying not to look at the ambulances, but that’s where her eyes go, and her body thinks it should be going there too, so she turns that way, as if to run, to leap into the rig, and suddenly Wolly’s face is looking back at her, just for an instant. Their eyes meet, and he almost loses his balance, trips; he looks down at his feet, and Helena takes that opportunity to duck away, to move into the house itself, because _not yet_ is what she is thinking, she just can’t see him yet.

She does not realize, not consciously, that she has added “yet” to that idea for the first time.

She makes her way to Leena’s dispatch, as Myka told her to do. She is not quite sure why, but… Myka told her to. Myka is authoritative, and there is something about Myka’s particular brand of authority to which Helena responds. She will puzzle that out later, she thinks, because for now, she is rounding the corner towards Leena’s desk, and…

…and Leena says, “Hi, H.G.,” as if no time at all has passed. As if she had expected to see Helena today.

“Leena,” Helena says. “It’s been…”

Helena can’t continue, and Leena readies herself to say something, to deliver what will clearly be one of her insightful pronouncements. Helena tries to brace herself. Leena says, “Obviously you’re here about the cat.”

“Obviously,” Helena agrees, before she’s registered the words. “Obviously… what?”

“To take the cat,” Leena says, as if it really is obvious.

“What?”

“Myka said she mentioned the idea to you. When she was putting up flyers.”

Helena considers, realizes that this is true. “She did. But… no, I brought her a book.”

“Did you.”

“Yes. It’s Dickens.”

“So’s that,” Leena says, pointing somewhere behind Helena.

Helena turns around. A very small cat is curled in a basket. It—he—looks like, at most, a miniature, round cake of some sort. A cinnamon roll. “I beg your pardon?” she asks.

“That’s what Myka’s been calling him.”

“Oh,” Helena says. Myka has been calling the cat… “Dickens! Oh, lord, she was talking about the cat. While I… oh, lord.” Leena looks impassively at Helena. It has been over a year, now, since the last time Leena looked impassively at Helena. “Because just now,” Helena tries to explain, but in the face of Leena’s impassivity there can be no _explanation_. “I think we’ve had a misunder… but. All right. Yes. Indeed. She did seem so… relieved. Yes.” Helena at this moment does not want to be the one who makes Myka Bering feel less relieved, feel once again burdened. So she says, “Here. I do have a book for Myka. For Lt. Bering, I mean.”

“Do you,” Leena says.

“Yes, I do,” Helena responds to the slight challenge in her words. She pulls the Forster out of her satchel, tries to proffer it to Leena.

Leena counters with a slab of notes. “Put a post-it on it, so she’ll know it’s from you.”

Helena rolls her eyes. “As if you can’t tell her it’s from me?”

“Leave a note,” Leena says. It is not up for argument.

“Fine.” Helena scribbles a note, presses it to the volume. Thank god for modern adhesives, she thinks; her really quite solid restoration can certainly stand up to the slight stick of a post-it. And now she is ready to stand up to her own situation. “Does the cat have, ah, accoutrements?”

“We’ve just been using a cardboard box for litter, but Myka bought him the basket,” Leena tells her. “And there’s a bag of kitten chow.”

And that is how Helena emerges from the firehouse for this first time in over a year: bearing, or possibly armed with, a basket containing a kitten and its chow.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Helena learns, over the next several hours, that cats are in fact nocturnal. Because while small Mr. Dickens had seemed quite contentedly asleep in the firehouse, he seemed to realize, upon entering Helena’s apartment, that night had fallen. And night means exploration and the hunt. He has explored the kitchen (conclusion: boring, with too-slick floors; Helena thinks she will need to purchase a carpet if she wants him to have his chow there, which she does indeed, because he has already scattered it everywhere, for apparently cats being fastidious = myth propagated to encourage cat ownership), the living-room bookshelves (first two levels of each bookcase: very intriguing smells; any above: unreachable at present), and her television cabinet (far too dusty, productive of sneezing; Helena agrees and considers that she should just get rid of the thing and what it contains).

He has also expressed an interest in stalking those of Christina’s dolls that Helena could not bear to see depart, once Caturanga had stopped her from removing everything en masse. Christina had had her own small chair that sat by the side of the sofa, and her dolls and animals had sat with her as they watched Sesame Street or the very few other programs that Helena had decided would not immediately pickle her intellect. Dickens particularly wants her Elf on the Shelf, or rather, wants to pounce upon, and shake him by, a long arm, then a long leg. Sadly, Dickens’s size inhibits his predation; it looks instead as if the Elf were shaking Dickens, or in the case of his leg, shaking him off.

She decides, after some time, that she would like to brush her teeth and prepare for bed, so she leaves Dickens to his own devices. But the beast is having none of that: he follows her into her bathroom, whereupon he proceeds to demonstrate that he is not actually box-trained.

At least it was the bathroom. She has to concede that his instincts are not entirely off-base.

She is cleaning the floor—reflecting that she should do that more often in any case, but she does sometimes simply forget these basic tasks now that she is alone—when Dickens decides that he has had enough. He moves outside the bathroom, to the Persian carpet beside her bed. He kneads its plush fibers for a moment, and then, clearly deciding that it will suit his needs, curls himself into a cake and falls immediately to sleep.

Helena, still on her knees in the bathroom, looks at him and wonders what, exactly, she has done… and why, exactly, she has done it. She has been wondering a variation on those since she made what felt at the time like a spontaneous decision to go to the firehouse this evening in the first place. Why she really thought that Myka Bering needed the middle volume of the Forster biography of Dickens… why she had spent so much time restoring the thing in the first place, if only to give it away on an impulse. Why she had found it necessary to hand-deliver the Forster. Why she had then agreed to take away a cat… simply to please Myka Bering? Why would she need to please Myka Bering, whom she does not even know?

Caturanga had certainly not helped, with his “why would a firefighter know that.” He’d made Helena want to reward Myka for knowing, for being singular. Helena had been thinking back, to before, and she remembered that she had liked talking to Myka; she has pulled those few memories out and examined them. They had never got to the topic of Dickens, but she recalled wide-ranging interests on Myka’s part, or at least the ability to talk intelligently about a wide range of topics.

They had never got to the topic of cats, either. If they had, Myka would never have suggested she take the thing, and now Helena would not be sitting on her bathroom floor, watching said thing’s tiny ribcage rise and fall.

She used to watch Christina’s ribcage rise and fall. She would go to Christina’s room at a late hour very like this one, telling herself it was just to check on her, and she would sit in the rocking chair that lived next to, first, Christina’s crib, and then, her bed, and she would watch her daughter breathe. As if by watching, she could ensure that it continue.

Magical thinking… and yet not, for it had happened when she was not watching, when she was not even near. Congenital heart defect had been the ultimate finding, but Helena knew, bone-deep, that if it had been she at home and not the sitter, she would have been able to keep Christina breathing and stable long enough to get her to the hospital so that the defect, a coarctation of the aorta, could be fixed. She knew. And she was sure that that was why she had felt she must watch, through those nights. She had sensed, somehow, the problem.

She had sensed it, yet she had not acted. Something had been wrong with her own child, and she could not see it. So much for any ability to assess a situation. So much for any diagnostic talent, of which she had fancied herself in possession. So much for any of that.

And now a new small being innocently takes unsuspecting breaths under Helena’s watch. But this is only a cat, she tells herself. Only a cat. Bookstores and kids and cats, Myka had said. Yes, the children who come to the bookstore will enjoy the cat. And Christina would have enjoyed the cat. Would have more than enjoyed the cat. Would have thrilled to a small cat named Dickens who attacked her Elf on the Shelf. Would have made up a story in which the Elf wore the marks of tooth and claw as badges of honor and he and Dickens eventually became great friends and Dickens wrote books about elves and Martin Chuzzlewit being a very strange name…

And Helena is asleep.

****

The post-it note reads, “In exchange.  —Helena.”  Myka has been staring at it for a week. She has stared at the Forster volume, too, but with far less wonder. With far less attention, even, although it is a first edition, and it is beautiful. She has taken the post-it off the book, for fear the adhesive will damage the leather.

“How could you have put that on this?” she’d demanded of Leena, when Leena had handed her the book.

Leena had shrugged. “She wanted to leave you a note.”

That shut Myka up—for the second time; the book had shut her up the minute Leena held it up to show it to her, the minute she had reached for it with hands that she was instantly worried weren’t clean enough, even though she’d washed up the minute they got back from the call.

The fire had turned out to be a minor incident of food on stove—smoking terribly, though, and smelling like it would have made for a pretty awful meal even if it hadn’t burned—and she’d made Steve drive as fast as he could back to the house, in hopes that maybe… well, but of course she wouldn’t have stayed. She’d have wanted to leave, and of course Dickens, she’d have wanted to get him into his new home.

Yes, now Dickens has a home, and Myka has a lovely book. She knows she should be happy; she should put the incident to bed. But she keeps staring at that post-it note, and she keeps feeling restless.

She sorts her restlessness into three primary components: first, there’s the book. It’s far too valuable for her to accept, whether in exchange for the cat or for any reason at all. Second, there’s the note, which H.G. has signed “Helena.” Myka knew that was her first name, but why would she have used it? Myka and everyone at the firehouse knows, or knew, her as H.G. So what does it mean? Myka doesn’t know, and not knowing always makes her fidget.

Finally, there’s Dickens. Myka can’t help herself; she misses the little guy, with his tiny purrs and high-pitched meeps and yeeps for food and attention and more attention.

And for a week, she thinks about these three things, separately and together, and at the end of that week, because a week seems a reasonable amount of time to spend thinking about three things, she decides that she will pay a visit to the bookstore. To address these three things.

****

Myka has walked into this bookstore only once before, she knows that, but it feels very familiar to her, with its jingling bell, its old-book patina of an aroma, its open, sunny spaces, its carpets strewn about the warm wood floors. She immediately sees Dickens’s basket—with some kind of child’s-play-area fencing set up around it—and she peeks in to see if he’s there. No Dickens. And no H.G., either, which is something of a surprise, but—

She hears a thumping noise from the back, then an “I’m here!” from H.G., who dashes to the front of the shop. She’s got Dickens cradled against her, and he’s squeaking, as if for his very life.

On seeing Myka, H.G. skids to a stop. She thrusts the cat at Myka, then realizes that Myka is holding the Forster. She shifts Dickens into one hand, uses the other to grab the Forster, then forces Dickens into Myka’s now-empty arms. Forster deposited on counter, she rushes back to the back, saying “small situation regarding bodily fluids, his not mine!”

Myka looks down at Dickens, who looks back up at her with “who, me?” written all over his little face. “I missed your little face,” she tells him, and he yeeps out something she can understand only as “then why did you send me away?”

“Because I don’t have time to deal with your bodily fluids,” she says.

“Oh, and I do?” H.G. asks as she returns to the front of the shop, wiping her hands on a paper towel.

“That wasn’t what I meant—” Myka starts to apologize.

H.G. smiles. “I’m teasing. We’ve actually had relatively few accidents. Today, though, his afternoon tea clearly did not agree with him, as he gave it right back to me. Chuzzlewit,” she says to him.

“I’m glad he’s doing well,” Myka says. “Chuzzlewit?”

“Or whichever other of the characters comes immediately to mind. That one is particular satisfying to say, however.”

“Honeythunder,” Myka tries, looking down at him.

“I don’t know that one,” says H.G.

“He’s in _Chuzzlewit_ , isn’t he? Oh, no, he’s in _Drood_. Drood,” Myka says. “No, I like Honeythunder better.”

“I’ve also liked Micawber.”

“That _is_ a good one,” Myka agrees. She suspects they could go on like this for quite some time. And the idea of just trading names of Dickens characters with H.G. sounds like a really wonderful way to spend an evening… but she’s covering a shift tonight, so she has to do what she came here to do. And that means, having checked on the cat, that she needs to move on to the next thing. “About the Forster,” she says.

“Is it all right?” H.G. asks. “Restoration is tricky; I don’t think I missed anything, but then one does think that, and then a page will fall out.”

“It’s beautiful,” Myka says.

“But?”

“But I can’t accept something like that. It’s way too valuable—all you got was a kitten.”

“Not just a kitten. He came packaged with a basket and chow.”

Myka smiles. “Right. I forgot about the Rolls-Royce basket and the five-star meals. Seriously, though. It’s just too much.”

“But you knew it. You knew it instantly. I want someone who appreciates… I mean, I want someone to have it who appreciates what it means. What it is, I mean.” H.G. pulls at her hair. That tuning thing again.

“You said you restored it. That had to have taken you a long time, and your time has to be valuable, and then the money you could get for the book itself—”

“It’s the middle volume,” H.G. says, as if that explains everything.

“I’m sure somebody needs it to complete the set. Or they could start with it and get the others. That’s what I’d have to do.”

“So start with it.”

Myka knows she’s protesting too much, but she can’t stop. “Well, let me do something for you then, to even things up. I could babysit Dickens, if you want. Clean up his… situations.”

“Absolutely not,” H.G. says.

The disappointment that Myka feels at this pronouncement is really out of proportion, she thinks. “Okay,” she says softly.

“But you can certainly come visit him.”

“I can?” And now her eagerness is out of proportion, but…

“Myka. Of course. You’re still holding him, and he is clearly thrilled with _that_ situation.”

“He just likes being held,” Myka says. “Don’t you, Pecksniff?” She considers. “No, that’s too mean. You’re not Pecksniff.” Then she looks up at H.G. and thinks, _names_. “What about you?”

H.G. is startled. “What about me?”

“Do you like H.G. or Helena? Or would you prefer My Lady Dedlock? I’d say Miss Havisham, but that _really_ doesn’t work.”

This makes H.G. laugh, and Myka is glad to see that. H.G. says, “What on earth would make you ask?”

“The note you left with the Forster. You signed it ‘Helena.’ And I wasn’t sure…”

“I didn’t even think,” H.G. says. “I always thought the initials more useful, I suppose, particularly at work. With men especially. Less of a divide that way… you should call me whatever you like. Although not Miss Havisham, please. Or Little Nell, I think.”

Myka laughs now. “My Lady Dedlock it is.” Then she says, because she wants to try it, “Or Helena.” She likes it, likes the way it fits the woman in front of her. “H.G.” is okay, but “Helena” is beautiful. Because Helena is beautiful.

“That’s fine,” Helena says.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I relied heavily for firefighter information in this part on a great NYT article, N.R. Kleinfeld's “Baptism by FIre,” which describes training and life as a probie. I tried to put a Myka spin on things, of course, because we all know that she would always go that extra step, think that extra thought...

You never forget your first fire, they always say.

Myka’s first fire, her first real fire, not just some ten-minute food-on-stove in-and-out, was in an old Victorian house that had been chopped up into apartments. Too much electricity trying to push through too many knobs and tubes, too many fuses that hadn’t been looked at in too many years, and suddenly there were too many flames and too much smoke and not nearly enough ways to get out. Myka was a probie, she was the can man, but a fire extinguisher, in that fire, was an ice pick against a glacier. Most of the residents had run out when they smelled the smoke, but there had still been a few unaccounted for; that was why her ladder team, plus another, were sent in. She’d masked up—terrified that the seal wasn’t airtight—and gone, crawling through the smoke, keeping one hand on the wall as she’d been taught to do, trying to stay oriented when she could see next to nothing, trying to feel for doors, people, furniture. Beds. Cribs.

She’d tried to remember everything, every detail, every item on the checklist in her head: reach up so you don’t miss doorknobs; reach out as far as you can. Identify anything you contact—and identify by touch, that’s what they’d done at the Academy, because you can’t see, though you also can barely even feel through your gloves. Myka had tried to stay abreast of new designs in cribs and kids’ beds, because knowing what those legs felt like was crucial. Myka had been known to take her gloves to furniture stores, put them on and touch, just to get a sense. She got funny looks, but it was worth it.

In that apartment building, in just one apartment, she’d found two cribs and a child’s bunk bed. Cribs empty. Bunk bed, first level empty; second level, she had to stand up for. Standing up meant using more air, but she took it as slow as she dared, because some kid might—she was glad she was tall; she didn’t have to climb to feel. No kid, nobody.

Next apartment, she was starting to worry about air, but it was unlocked, she didn’t have to break down the door, but it was hard to push open, and wait, there was something about doors, she had remembered it in the last one, what was it… check behind doors. People crawl to doors, then can’t get out. Check behind the door.

And that was where she found the woman. Unconscious, but maybe alive, and Myka pulled her, dragged her out, dragged her down the hall, yelling into her radio to the outside team, and when she emerged, the medics were waiting, and they took the woman from Myka, and her family said later that it was a miracle that Myka had found her, but the rest of Myka’s truck said that the real miracle was that a probie had managed to make it into an actual burning building and come out alive. Someone called her “hero,” and it stuck, a strange combination of derision and respect. Because some firefighters went years and never got a grab at all.

No two fires are alike, they always say that, too, but Myka did seem to have an uncanny knack for the grab, to know where people would hide, or how far they could crawl, or why they would make the boneheaded choices they did, when faced with a fire. It’s just experience, she would say. Because that checklist in her head got longer and longer, yet she could go through it faster and faster, and the more you knew about people and what they were likely to do, the better you could counter a fire’s unpredictability.

You never forget someone’s last fire, either.

Sam’s last fire had seemed at first to be unpredictable in the expected way. At first, it was just two apartments on the middle floor of a building, then four apartments, doubling in size, doubling again, and then it became unpredictable in the worst way, and the Chief ordered everyone out. Myka had been leading her ladder’s inside team, and they brought two people, one adult and one child, out with them. Sam had led his truck’s outside team; he was the roof man, on the floor above the burning apartments, and he should have known better than to stay where he was, the Chief said, because he fell through, it was preventable, the Chief said it was preventable, it was a tragedy but they should all learn from it,  and the others in the house nodded and vowed never to make that mistake, and Myka tried, she did try, for a while, to look at them look at her like she should have told Sam not to make that mistake. Because she would have known better, everyone knew. Everyone knew that Myka knew everything; that was why she was the hero.

But she was not a hero, certainly not _the_ hero, and even more certainly not their hero, in that house, because she did not save Sam, could never have saved Sam.

So she transferred to 13.

And over a year later, for Myka, 13 is the same as her old house, because all firehouses are the same, but 13 is different too, because all firehouses are different. The house has had some food-on-stove, some working fires, some genuine immediately-dangerous-to situations. There have been car accidents, trapped people, false alarms. There has been all of that. And 13 has some people who call Myka “hero”: Steve does, because he’d met Myka when he was a probie and she was just barely no longer one, and Liam does, because he takes his cue from Steve. Amanda doesn’t, although she did, in the past. Amanda doesn’t because she knows it still cuts Myka now. Blunter now than a year ago, but it still cuts.

Now Amanda just calls Myka “Myka.” Or “Lieutenant,” though she says that with a tone, because god forbid Amanda actually acknowledge, in any situation other than a burning building, that Myka is technically her superior.

They spend a lot of time together, Myka and Amanda, because it is rare for two women firefighters to be in the same house, much less on the same truck. They spend time together because they have known each other for years, because on a lot of occasions when firefighters gather, it is rare for two women firefighters to be in the same _room_. Observers of their closeness have made insinuations about them, but neither cares: Amanda because she is not gay or bi but does not care in the slightest what anyone thinks of her, and Myka because she is certainly not going to give up a friend because anyone gets the wrong idea.

Myka is certainly not going to give up the best workout partner she’s ever had, either. The Marine Corps instilled into Amanda an absolutely punishing sense of physical self-discipline, one that easily beats Myka’s. Myka considers herself very tough—and she is very tough. But Amanda is on a different level entirely. People look at her and see how gorgeous she is. Most of them don’t look past that. But put her in her firefighter gear, and no one can see her beauty. All they know is that this person is strong and can save lives, and Amanda lifts weights and lifts and lifts again so that that will keep on being true. When Myka says, “I want to be done,” Amanda responds with “I want to be strong, and so do you.” And then they lift some more.

Today is actually a relatively light day; a call early in their shift has tired them, and Amanda allows as how there was some lifting involved, so they can take it easier. Not easy, just easier.

As Myka raises dumbbells on either side of her body, she thinks. She thinks about how long she has known Amanda. And she thinks that Amanda knew Helena—knew H.G.—pretty well, for a while, here at 13. So she says, “I might need some advice.”

Amanda is doing lat pull-downs. “Advice… about…. what?” she asks, between reps.

“Okay,” Myka says, and it’s a concession. “About a woman.”

This is enough to make Amanda stop in the middle of a set. If only Myka had known _that_ was all it would take to stop a workout… but now Amanda orders, “Dumbbell flys. You can talk in between.”

Myka lies back on the bench. “It’s… just… that….” she starts.

“Fine,” Amanda says. “You win; that’ll take forever, and I’ll end up so frustrated that I grab a dumbbell from you and knock you unconscious. Sit up and tell me. But don’t let your arms think we’re done here.”

“Thanks. Well… it’s because of who it is, that I think I need some insight.”

“Okay. Who is it? Do I know her?”

“Yes. It’s H.G. I mean, it’s H.G. Wells.”

Amanda says, “Thanks for the clarification. Because I know so many women named H.G.”

Myka forges ahead. “Anyway. I think… well. Did you know she has a bookstore? And I’ve been there a couple of times, and I… I just would sort of like to get to know her better.”

“I hope that this is your nerdy way of saying that you would like to date her. Because hallelujah, she actually is a woman.”

“Why does that make you so happy?”

“You are much, much better with women.”

“I was fine with Sam!” She’s indignant, but then she falters. “And then, of course.”

“Yes, you were fine with Sam. For the… how long? two months? that you were together.”

“It would have been longer.” She feels like a teenager trying to explain something to her mother. No, to her father.

“Myka, honey, not much longer. He would have gone back to his wife. You know that, I know that, everybody knows that. I know that when he died, you could wrap yourself up in the idea of him and make like it was everything. It wasn’t. A terrible thing happened, yes. But it wasn’t everything.”

A part of Myka can almost see a way in which Amanda is right. She can’t quite get to the rightness, still, but it is closer to correct than it was a year ago, a month ago, maybe even a couple of weeks ago. “That’s… related. To my question about Helena. I mean, H.G. She had a terrible thing happen to her, and it _was_ everything. I keep worrying that I’m reminding her of it, and that she’ll never be able to look at me without… and I don’t know her well enough to ask her if I am, but if I don’t ask her, then I won’t feel like I can really safely get to know her. See?”

“I see that you’re psyching yourself out so you can safely never talk to her again. That’s what I see. You’ve seen her twice, you said?” As Amanda speaks, she picks up one of the dumbbells and starts doing biceps curls with her left arm.

Myka likes seeing this: it means Amanda’s giving the matter serious thought. She says, “No, I went to the bookstore twice. Plus, she came here once, to take Dickens. And she gave me a book. And she also said that I could come and visit Dickens.”

“And you are seriously asking me if I think she is traumatized by the very sight of you.”

“But what if she was just being polite?” This is Myka’s real fear. Because she keeps thinking back to their first meeting in the bookstore, and how H.G.—Helena—had looked. And she had said, right in the firehouse, that she was worried she’d seemed dismissive. “What if she’s really just hoping that I disappear and stay gone? And even if she’s okay with _me_ in, I don’t know, limited doses, I can’t just pretend like my job doesn’t exist, can I? When she was here for the cat, the alarm went off, and Amanda, her _face_.”

Amanda switches arms. She does five curls on the right; she pauses briefly, then does five more. Myka stews. Finally, Amanda says, “I have an idea. But she and I were not best buddies or anything, so I don’t know if this is a _good_ idea, okay?”

Myka hopes this idea does not involve a double date. Five years ago, Myka had been interested in a girl she met in a coffee shop, so the two of them went on a double date with Amanda and Pete Lattimer, Chief Jane Lattimer’s son. Amanda and Pete hit it off, but not romantically; they told jarhead stories all through dinner and then Amanda told Pete she wouldn’t actually date him unless he were the last man on earth. Pete told her that instead of killing all the other guys on earth, he would just find another girl, if that was okay with her. Myka’s date asked Myka if she knew any normal people, and Myka had to say “no, not really,” and that was pretty much the end of that. So now she asks, trepidatiously, “What’s your idea?”

“We’ll get Artie to invite her to the wedding.”

Myka had not seen that one coming. Artie was marrying Vanessa Calder, a doctor at a local hospital. They’d met back when Artie was fighting fires; he was burned pretty badly at one point, and Dr. Calder had supervised his care. It took Artie ages, and a mild but scary heart attack last year, to finally ask her.

Amanda goes on, “She knew Artie pretty well, before. They would work on the rigs together—she’s very mechanical—and they would pretend to argue, but he practically lit up anytime she asked him a technical question. She knows Dr. Calder too, of course, so it makes sense. Plus, I know Artie actually _wanted_ to invite her, because he asked Wolly if he thought she’d want to come. And Wolly said he didn’t think it was time yet—but that was before this cat business happened, and you started stalking her at her bookstore.”

“I am not stalking her at her bookstore!” Myka is fuming, because the first time could barely even be said to count in any way, and the second one was for the cat.

Amanda sets the dumbbell down. “You know what they say: first time’s a coincidence, second time’s a stalker.”

“Nobody says that!”

“And then they follow it up with, if she comes to see you in between those times at the firehouse? It must be love.”

“It is not love.”

“If you say so. But I’ll tell you this: if she comes to the wedding, there you go. She can handle it, leaving you free to start handling her. And if she doesn’t…”

“What do I do then?”

“You’re on your own then, stalker. Serenade her at her bookstore with your ukulele?”

Myka sighs. “You just wanted to remind me that I told you three years ago, _while drunk_ , that I can play the ukulele. Because it’s been, what, a week since you last brought that up.”

“I did. But I would be swept off my feet if you serenaded me outside a bookstore with a ukulele.” Amanda bats her eyes at Myka, and Myka laughs, because Amanda’s eyes are so very large, and her eyelashes are so very long.

Myka accuses, “You would not. You would not be swept off your feet by me ever.”

Now Amanda waves a dismissive hand. “Honey, that is because you are not buff enough to carry me anywhere except under the extreme duress of flames. You would fall down. And also, you are not my type, and I am not yours.”

“All those things are true, except for the part where I can carry you.”

“I would like to see you try,” Amanda snorts.

Myka says, because she is nervous about this potential wedding situation and because she absolutely _can_ carry Amanda, “I can _bench_ you.”

“That is ridiculous.”

Myka yells in the direction of the door, “Everybody! Get in here! I am going to bench Amanda!”

“You are not.” Amanda starts laughing.

“Would you like to put a wager on that?”

“Ha! Yes, yes I would. If you can bench me, how’s this, your ukulele playing will forever after be your own private Idaho.”

“Sold,” Myka says. “And if I can’t bench you? What then?”

“You have to ask H.G. Wells to the wedding yourself. As your date.” Amanda’s huge eyes are twinkling now, and Myka can think of no response at all. Amanda stands up and walks over to Myka’s bench. She knocks one knuckle against Myka’s head. “Quit overthinking, you nut. It’s a win-win.”

Liam, Steve, Claudia, Todd, Wolly, and Trailer all manage to arrive in the workout room at the same time, threatening to clog the doorway, and Claudia says, “I guess my question is, why is the lieutenant going to try to bench Amanda?”

“I am not going to _try_ to bench Amanda,” Myka says as she lies back on the bench. “I need spotters. Todd, Wolly, you’re going get her shoulders and her feet, and she is going to tighten those famous abs, and then you are going to put her on my hands. Got it?”

Amanda says, “Wolly, is this a bad time to say I’ve always had a crush on you?”

Wolly turns red, and Myka tells Amanda, “Quit cheating, you cheater. Liam, take Wolly’s place. I’m pretty sure it won’t matter to you if Amanda tells you about her nonexistent longstanding crush.”

Liam grins and moves behind Amanda; she makes as if to swoon into his arms. “I might drop you,” he says, “just to prove the lieutenant’s point.”

“I might retaliate somehow,” Amanda says, but they’re lifting her now, and Myka can see she’s getting serious. She doesn’t want to get hurt.

And it turns out that Myka can, just barely, with her arms shaking, lower Amanda almost to her chest and push her back up again. The boys grab her shoulders and legs, Myka scoots out from underneath her, and they lower her down to the bench.

“So,” Myka says to her. “What’s that stringed instrument they play in Hawaii?”

“Ukulele!” Claudia shouts.

“Amanda?” Myka asks.

“I have no idea,” Amanda says. “Never heard of it.”

The boys and Claudia are pounding Myka on the back, saying they have never actually seen anybody do that before; Amanda is mock-sulking, but actually laughing, threatening to grab Myka and hoist her up for revenge. Myka is triumphant.

But Myka is also, unaccountably, more than a little disappointed.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Helena has had the note from Artie near her, at the bookstore till, on her desk in the apartment, on the long table in the restoration room, for almost a week. It is an extremely sweet note, very similar in the meticulousness of its wording to the one he sent her, after. She had never thought of Artie as a person of great tact, but he surprised her then, and he has surprised her, now, again, by inviting her so delicately to his wedding to Vanessa Calder. He says that he will completely understand if she would prefer not to be reminded of that part of her life, but he has such fond memories of their time working together. And Vanessa does as well, of course, and would so love to see Helena again, on such a happy occasion, one that he has been so foolish to delay for so long because of doubts and uncertainties.

She can almost hear him saying, as if it is a revelation, “It turns out that life is short.” He had always said that about his burns, said that they’d made him appreciate his life more; he had been fortunate enough to meet Vanessa then, and he had been shocked enough to recognize, at least on some level, how he felt about her, almost immediately. Clearly, however, he had needed yet another reminder in order to push him all the way to marriage.

And Helena does miss him. She misses Vanessa, too: her calming presence at the hospital, naturally, whenever Helena and Wolly would bring victims to her, but even from much farther back, when Helena was in medical school, before Christina happened and she had had to quit and find a more ready source of income. Vanessa was a marvelous teacher. Helena had idolized her.

Two people for whom she has long had very warm feelings are to be married, and she has been invited. And yet she knows that everyone else will have been invited as well: Amanda. Chief Lattimer. Steve, Liam. Leena—though seeing Leena had been all right. But Wolly, too. Wolly will be there…

“So what do I do?” she asks Dickens, who is curled in his basket behind the child’s fencing.

Dickens has no opinion.

“You’ve been a great help,” Helena tells him.

The bell jingles, and Helena looks up to a lovely sight: Myka Bering has come into the bookstore. “How’s the Lord Chancellor?” she asks.

Helena gestures at him. “See for yourself. Well-fed. Lazy. Wouldn’t do an honest day’s work for any amount of money.”

“No change, then,” Myka laughs. “He does look bigger, though.”

“Well, you’d get bigger too, if you only ate, slept, and occasionally pounced on something that turned out, to your disappointment, not to be edible after all.”

Myka clearly can’t help herself; she goes to the basket and gathers Dickens into her arms. He mumbles a tiny protest at having been moved, but after that seems untroubled. “Here’s a good one,” she says to him. “How about ‘Grewgious’?”

Helena asks, “How do you know all these? Do you sit home nights paging through _Bleak House_ and the like, taking notes?”

“I would, but there’s this amazing invention called the internet. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Lots of cute animal videos, and also lists of things. Like Dickens characters.” She looks down at the cat again. “Nickleby. Be impressed, that one I didn’t even have to go to the list for.”

Helena _is_ impressed by Myka, but it has nothing to do with her ability to name Dickens characters. Well, no, all right, it does have a bit to do with that, because that is part of what makes her herself… and she truly is singular, Helena is coming to find. Dickens isn’t the only author she knows backwards and forwards, and she is extremely interested in the restoration process, to such a point that whenever Helena explains anything, she feels that she must say “but I’m boring you,” and Myka, seemingly sincerely, says something like, “I don’t think that’s possible.”

She has come by the bookstore only a few times, but each time, she stays longer, and Helena enjoys her company more. She wonders if Dickens has become more of a pretext now… but Myka does seem to genuinely like the cat, so… perhaps they need to meet in some different venue? Just so Helena can get some idea…

Myka will be at the wedding, she realizes. Maybe. Probably? As Helena considers for a moment, she contrives a way of finding out without appearing to inquire directly. “Do you have any idea,” she begins, deliberately causally, “what Artie and Vanessa might like as a wedding present?”

This question apparently startles Myka. She almost loses her grip on Dickens, then has to juggle to keep him from falling. He finds this disturbing, as he would; when she gets him resettled, he looks particularly like his original, tiny—tiny and indignant—self. “Sorry, Cratchit,” she tells him. “I guess I tripped or something.” She mouths to Helena “no list that time either,” and Helena smiles, both at that and at the fact that Myka was surprised by her question.

“So do you?” she repeats.

“Are you going, then?” Myka asks. “To the wedding?”

“Are you?” Helena asks, and she might be holding her breath. Just a bit.

“Yes, yes, I’m going. And not to alarm you, but… well, maybe just to let you know, if you decide to go, there’s been this big coordination of shifts, and some people from other houses are going to cover ours so that a lot of 13 can go, you know, even the Chief, and Leena, and… is that too much? Maybe everybody won’t show. I mean, people say they’re going to things all the time, and then they don’t go, so—”

“It’s all right,” Helena tells her, though she has to confess, to herself at least, that she does find it almost mesmerizing, the way Myka will talk and talk to fill empty space. “I’ve been thinking about it. Going, I mean. And it might… be time.” Then a thought occurs to her, and for some reason she voices it: “But I don’t want to be a distraction. Do you think I would be? I haven’t seen anyone in ages, and I…”

Myka dismisses this. “People always see people at weddings that they haven’t seen in ages. That’s what they’re for. Well, secondarily, I mean, other than the actual wedding; they just… get people together.”

Helena takes a moment. “So if I were to go, I would… see you there. Is that correct?”

Myka takes her own time in answering. She leans down to Dickens, nuzzles his now-complacent head. Then she looks back up at Helena. “That is correct,” she says.

They both seem to struggle, for just a moment, to resume speaking again.

****

It was because they were looking forward, Myka thought later. She knew _she_ had been; ever since her conversation with Helena, she’d been looking forward to the wedding more and more every day, every hour. And being a first responder was like playing a sport, in a way: your next opponent had to be the only one that mattered. You overlook a team you’re supposed to beat easily, skimp on your preparations, because you care more about next week’s game against a powerhouse? That patsy team will come into your house and destroy you in an upset that its fans will talk about for _years_ afterward.

The wedding is to start at five-thirty, at a posh downtown hotel. Everyone is supposed to be off shift by three, so they will have plenty of time to get themselves into fancy clothes and get their cars valet parked at that fancy hotel.

No one is particularly concerned when, at nine in the morning, Leena’s voice calls for trucks and ambulances. Someone has seen flames— _maybe_ someone has seen flames—emerging from a window of an apartment building, one located, incongruously, in the middle of an older residential neighborhood. “My bet’s on food,” Steve says as he drives.

“I don’t think we should even allow that bet,” Liam says. “The first person who says it always wins.”

“It’s like calling shotgun,” Steve argues. “You had as much chance to say it first as I did.”

“Fine, then. My money’s on smoking in bed.”

“At nine in the morning?”

“It’s Saturday. Plenty of people sleep in on Saturday.”

“If somebody’s sleeping in, they’re not smoking,” Steve says.

Myka listens with only half an ear. She’s busy second-guessing what she’d decided to wear tonight, thinking that she really should wear a dress instead of the kurta and wide trousers she’d decided on… but the kurta’s embroidered and bejeweled, and she doesn’t really have a dress that looks as suitable for an _occasion_ … she wonders what Helena will be wearing… whether she’ll wear her hair down or up… and now Myka’s thinking about her own hair; she’d been thinking of putting it up, but maybe it should be down? “Amanda,” she says, turning to the woman beside her, “what’s your opinion on—”

As Steve turns onto the building’s street, everyone shuts up instantly. Because there aren’t just _maybe_ flames emerging from _a_ window. An entire floor is ablaze, a floor of an apartment building, and Myka is suddenly seeing all of it again, knowing what’s happening to people on the floor above, except this time she’s seeing it from the outside… residents are staggering out, some still in pajamas; Liam was of course right about the sleeping in. And no one expects a fire at nine o’clock on Saturday morning.

The neighborhood is terrible for a fire, no matter the time; there are tall, mature, leafy trees everywhere, and the city has not bothered to prune them: electrical wires snake through their branches. Very near the apartment building are older houses, sited close together, and if the fire jumps from the apartments, as it is threatening to do? Myka can’t see how they’ll keep it contained.

More trucks are arriving; Chief Lattimer emerges from one and begins organizing the scene. Truck 13 is to search the burning floor, if they can, and try to find the source of the fire. If they can. Other trucks, other teams are to evacuate the rest of the building; there are three floors above the fire, and Myka’s people will try to find out if there is any access to those floors from below.

“Doubtful, though,” Myka says to the Chief, right before she secures her mask. “Count those windows.” She means the ones from which flames are emerging.

Chief Lattimer nods. She shouts, amplified by her bullhorn, “Attention residents of floors six, seven, and eight! Make your way to the roof of the building for evacuation!” Then, to a firefighter beside her, she orders, “All around the building. As loud as you can, get them to the roof.” To another, it’s “find the manager, find anybody else who has information: I want to know how many people we have to account for, right now!” Myka knows that someone will be handing her a tablet in half a second that shows the blueprints the city has on file for this place—but who knows how up to date that’ll be. “I’ll keep you informed, lieutenant,” she tells Myka.

As Myka leads her people in, she faintly hears the metallic screech of the ladders moving into place. She wonders if Artie really did fix the wiggle, however many weeks ago that was…

And then they’re in the building, and everything starts. Bizarrely, two people, a woman and a man, the man holding a dog’s leash with some kind of spaniel whining at its end, are just _standing there_ in the lobby, as if waiting for direction; Amanda grabs them both and shoves them in the direction of the exit door. Myka knows she wants to scream at them—Myka does too—but they have to save their air. Just as they’re about to hit the stairs, the woman turns back. She says, “But our son. He didn’t want to come with us to walk the dog.”

“Where’s your son? Which apartment?” Myka asks, though she is sure she knows that whatever the answer is, it will start with the number five.

“Five twenty-two,” she says. “We live in five twenty-two. He rolled over and went back to sleep.” She is very close to being in shock, and her husband doesn’t look much better. Myka thinks she’d get her best information from the dog at this point.

“Okay,” Myka says. “We’ll get there. You need to get yourselves safely out of here, so you’ll be there for him when we get him out, all right?”

Amanda has stayed behind to wait for Myka, who radios the Chief: “Boy in 522,” and the Chief responds, “Out of the stairwell, turn left, second on your left.”

“Roger,” Myka says, then to Amanda, “let’s go.” Amanda nods, and they take off up the stairs, at a measured pace, because air, always air.

As they near the fifth floor, there’s more and more smoke, and they can see the door beginning to deform; it won’t last much longer, and once it goes, anybody’s ability to get out via stairwell goes too. Myka gets an update from Steve: they can for now use the hallway, though there are flames at the ceiling, and the smoke is thickening; he and Liam have gone right, so she and Amanda can go left.

It’s quiet, through the crackle that has not yet become a roar. There’s no smoke alarm whooping, and Myka radios this information to the Chief too. “I don’t feel good about this,” Amanda says.

They pound on the first door, shouting “Fire Department!”; they try the door; it’s locked.

“Come back to it after 522,” Myka says.

They pound on 522, shouting again, but there’s no answer, and this one’s locked too. “Okay,” Myka says, and Amanda takes her crowbar and wrenches the door open. They both drop immediately to the ground as flames and more smoke rush out.

Now it’s loud; now Myka can barely hear Amanda as she yells, “Fire department! Call out!”

Nothing. “Chief, where are the bedrooms?” Myka shouts into her radio.

“Down central hallway, master on right, two others on left,” crackles back at her.

“Roger,” Myka says. Amanda is barely an arm’s length from her, but she can see only her hunched outline.

Myka is starting to move down the hall, Amanda right behind her at her boots, when she hears one boom. Then another. Then a huge crack, and behind her, a rumble, a whoosh, and _something_ is right behind Amanda, who thank god scrambled up beside Myka quickly enough, because it is, Myka sees as she looks up, furniture or the floor or the wall or something from the apartment above, and it is now blocking their way out of this apartment, completely, and now the fire here, right here in this space has a lot more air to work with, and now Myka and Amanda have almost no time to work with, because the Chief is in Myka’s ear, ordering everybody out, everybody out, because the floor won’t last very long with a burning ceiling falling on it, but there is no way out for Myka and Amanda except forward, and at least the boy, if he is still alive, is forward too. They find the first door, open it, can’t see anything, feel for something—but there’s no bed in here, this isn’t it. Next one, there is a bed, a twin bed, so this must be it, but there no one in it, on it, under it, and Amanda orders, “Call out!” but no one does. “Bathroom,” Myka says, and Amanda nods. People head for bathrooms in fires, because of the water, because they think that a bathtub will protect them.

He isn’t in the bathroom.

“Get out now,” says the Chief in Myka’s ear.

“One more room,” Myka says. She’s not sure if she’s asking the Chief or telling her.

“It’s a mistake,” the Chief says.

“I’ll make it,” and this, Myka _is_ telling her.

“One minute,” Chief Lattimer says. “And then come out the window; all the ladders are at the roof, so you’ll have to climb down.”

“Roger,” Myka says.

They are going to have to search the master bedroom and its bath, and Myka thinks the Chief is probably right, that it’s a mistake, because it forces them to turn back toward the center of the building, and the closer to the center, the less stable the structure. Myka’s nerves are tingling; she precedes Amanda into the room, because if anybody’s going to pay for this, she has to be the one. Her decision, her consequences.

And they find him: he’s under the bed in the master bedroom, unconscious. They radio it in: victim found. He’s younger and smaller than Myka had imagined, maybe nine, eight, younger? She and Amanda drag him out from his hiding place—kids hide from fires; fires are dangerous, and they know they need to hide from danger.

Amanda needs to go first, because it’s safer to go out first, because she’s stronger and can move the boy faster, and because this is Myka’s mistake. Amanda starts hauling the boy towards the window, and Myka is right behind her—right behind her, almost helping to push the boy along, but suddenly Myka is flailing, because there is less floor underneath her than there should be, and she is hanging on to something structural _in_ the floor, something that will be collapsing, as floors do. She can still see Amanda and the boy, and they are still moving, and Amanda says in her ear, “Myka? What happened?” But Myka is holding on, and she can’t reach the radio. She knows that Amanda will want to turn around, but she can’t; she has the boy. She has to get the boy out. Her job now is to save him.

It _was_ a mistake. But it wasn’t, because Amanda is saving that boy. And if Amanda can save that boy, _is_ saving that boy,  then Myka can certainly save herself, because everybody makes mistakes… she’s starting to feel lightheaded, but she has to focus. Has to keep her grip tight, has to pull herself up, never mind the fact that it would be so much easier to let go, to just… to just make another mistake, to let go, which doesn’t even feel like a mistake right now, except she has someplace to be, she is sure… she is hanging on. One mistake is enough.

She pulls and clambers and for some reason this beam that she’s clutching holds, and she’s on the top of it, and she’s throwing her body in the direction that has to be the window, and then she finally can see the window, which Amanda has clearly broken open. The fire is thrilled to have this fresh source of air, but Myka can see the amassed engines; they are about to put water on it. Myka jabs at her radio, says, “I’m headed out.” She peeks down and sees Amanda with the boy across her back, slowly moving from escape to escape. Myka uses what feels like the last burst of energy she will ever have to flop herself out the window. She follows Amanda down, one precarious metal step at a time.

But it’s okay, because they’re out, and now they’re down, and Amanda’s handing the boy off to Wolly and Claudia, and he’s alive, but Myka and Amanda have to go get more air, because the fire’s in two houses now, and she and Amanda take Todd and go through one of those, and Todd, bless his probie heart (and he can be the hero now) finds an old man, barely conscious, who has an _oxygen_ tank, for the love of god, and Myka could just about kiss Todd, who has fumbled around today and done just about everything wrong but has got it right in the end anyway.

And of course one of the trees in the old man’s front yard has caught, and it’s too near the wires (though Myka is sure they’ve cut power to this whole neighborhood by now), and the engines have the hoses turned on it, just to be safe and get it out as fast as possible, but it’s all happening right as Myka, Todd, Amanda, and the old man come out, and now they’re soaked.

But there are still people on the apartments’ roof, so they go to the ladders to help hand people down, and then there’s counting people, keeping track, making sure everyone who needs to go to the hospital gets in an ambo.

Eventually, a damp, exhausted Myka sags against her truck. She’s caught a glimpse of Steve, and he seems fine. If he seems fine, that must mean Liam’s fine, too. So her truck’s all right. There’s that at least. She looks around for Chief Lattimer, surprised that she can’t hear her voice; her eyes find the Chief, eventually, deep in conversation with her son. Myka wonders for a moment why Pete’s here, then she puts it together: Pete’s investigating the fire. The incredibly fast burn. The smoke detectors. Other things Myka didn’t see or hear.

The Chief sees Myka, calls her over. She says first, “We’ll be talking later about your recklessness,” and Myka nods. “Not today, though. Today, we didn’t lose you, or any of ours. Six civilian casualties, numerous injuries, this entire building gone, and those two houses will never be the same.”

“What time is it?” Myka asks.

“Almost three-thirty,” Pete says. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Amanda okay?”

“She’s okay. Got a boy out of the apartments.”

“Ooh-rah.” Pete says it softly.

“Tell her at the wedding,” Chief Lattimer says.

“Won’t we miss it?” Myka asks her.

“Not on my watch,” the Chief says, and Myka believes her.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

There was no time, in the end, for anyone to go home to change clothes, so everyone who was at the fire is wearing the best they could cobble together from the clothes they keep at 13. Liam and Steve both look like they just stepped out of a Polo ad, because apparently they both have taken up yachting after work. Amanda, of course, looks like a fashion model in the kind of dress that Myka can barely imagine exists in the world.

“I bought it three weeks ago and never managed to get it home,” Amanda said. “How pathetic is that?” She would like to be wearing Manolo Blahniks with it, but instead ballet flats are the best she could do.

“Better for dancing,” Myka told her.

“You’re even more set than I am, then,” Amanda had said on the way over. Because Myka is wearing the darker of the two pairs of jeans she had, plus a boring blue button down, and that’s bad enough, but also, she is mortified to even think about, on her feet are the green Converse low-tops she threw on to drive to the firehouse early this morning. When Amanda saw Myka putting them on in the locker room, she guffawed and said, “Let that be a lesson to you, _lieutenant_ , that you really need to be prepared for a more… diverse set of circumstances.”

“Come on!” Myka had protested. “How was I supposed to know? You don’t think Artie will be offended, do you?”

“Artie would wear sneakers _himself_ if he didn’t think Vanessa would kill him.”

“Vanessa, then.”

“You are not at all concerned about either one of them,” Amanda had accused.

And Myka said quietly, “Do you think she’ll hate me?”

Amanda, working on putting on her own shoes, reached over and gave Myka a one-armed hug. “I think she will love you more than she already does.”

“She doesn’t love me,” Myka said.

At that point, Amanda just blinked her almond eyes at Myka  

And as they walk into the hotel, as they reach the ballroom where the ceremony is to be held—only forty-five minutes late, which is a miracle, all things considered—as they walk into the room„ Amanda takes Myka’s hand. “Are you going to be all right?” she asks, and Myka can tell that she’s really asking.

“I hope so,” Myka says. She gives Amanda’s hand a squeeze, then she drops it because, oh god, because there is Helena, looking like… Myka is not sure what words to use for what she is looking like, other than “beautiful” and… well, Myka’s brain stops at “beautiful.” Her hair is down. She is wearing a dress, a dark blue dress, one with straps that leave her shoulders substantially bare.

“She is here for _you_ ,” Amanda says to Myka.

“That’s not true,” Myka says, even as she wishes beyond any wishing, and really for a second might be starting to believe, that it were true.

“Do you think she wore that dress for Artie?” Amanda says into her ear, and Myka wishes even harder that it could be so.

And Amanda has moved away, moved somewhere else, and Myka is standing right in front of Helena. Helena says, “I could try to be coy, I could try to say something about Amanda holding your hand, but I know Amanda, so I won’t. I saw the fire. Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right.”

“I am,” Myka says. “Other than… I meant to look better. I meant to look better for this. For—” But it’s suddenly okay, everything is okay, because Helena has put her arms around Myka, and Myka lets her arms move as they want to, and they stand for just a second, together, reassuringly, and it is all right. Everything is all right.

“I don’t care what you’re wearing,” Helena says as she steps back.

“Artie and Vanessa might,” Myka tries to argue.

“Artie and Vanessa, I think, understand the situation very well, given that they were happy to delay the start of their wedding until you and everyone else had finished fighting a fire. I think that of all people, Artie and Vanessa will understand.” Helena smiles. “If it hadn’t been you lot, it might have been Vanessa herself; she was held up at the hospital and didn’t arrive until about an hour ago. Artie thought she’d thought better of it and was making her escape.”

“So you’ve… seen Artie? Seen them both, I guess?”

“I have. We spent a bit of time catching up. Obviously they needed to see to other guests as well, but… it was pleasant.”

The way she says it allows Myka to relax a little. “So are we starting?” she asks. “Soon? Or maybe now?”

Helena raises an eyebrow. “Impatient?”

Myka says, “It’s just that the wedding’s great and all, but I’m starving. We’re all starving. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. I hope this hotel understands that it’s got hungry firefighters on its hands.”

“Some things never change, do they?” Helena asks. There’s a nostalgic, almost rueful, tone to her voice.

“Is that all right?” Myka realizes she’s just been talking—not measuring her words, not thinking about what Helena will think, not even trying to take up space until she can figure out the right thing to say. Just talking.

Helena says, “It’s all right.”

****

After the ceremony, Myka leaves Helena for a moment to congratulate Artie and Vanessa.

Artie says, “Nice shoes,” and Myka starts apologizing, because the fire, and the time, and she should have planned better, and… she stops talking, because she realizes they’re both chuckling at her.

“I really did mean to look nicer. Out of respect,” she says.

“It’s not a problem,” Vanessa says. She’s just radiant, Myka thinks. Just radiant. “I just got married. Wear your sneakers. Wear flip flops!”

Artie says, “I wasn’t _allowed_ to wear sneakers. But I never asked about flip flops.”

“You are _never_ allowed to wear flip flops,” Vanessa tells him.

Myka loves how they are together. She says, “I’m so happy for you. I’m so happy that you’re happy, and so sorry that we held you up for even one minute.”

“It was actually fine. It gave everybody some time to _calm down_ and realize that no one was leaving anyone at the altar,” Vanessa says, looking pointedly at Artie. She looks back at Myka. “And to talk to people. It was your doing to get her here, wasn’t it?”

Myka says, “I might have helped, but—”

“You did a very good thing,” Vanessa says. “She was part of the family for a long time, she and Christina, and then suddenly she wasn’t… we lost both of them. It’s good to have her back.”

“I don’t know if she’s really… back,” Myka says, with regret. She would like to make everything right for Vanessa today, make everything perfect, but Helena—

Artie says, “Myka, just accept the thanks, okay? It’s good, even if it’s only for tonight.”

And Myka has to agree: a lot of things seem to be good, even if only for tonight.

****

Helena knows she can’t put it off any longer. Myka seems deep in discussion with Artie and Vanessa, and she herself is at a loose end, and the entire staff of 13 is here, including Wolly. And he has looked her way repeatedly since arriving.

She goes to him and stands beside him, pulls his sleeve. “Wolly,” she says.

“H.G.,” he says. He doesn’t turn his head.

“You’re right here. I can’t not talk to you.”

“You could. I was right at the firehouse, and for over a year, you seemed very able to not talk to me.”

“I know.” She cannot blame him if he hates her. She was barely in her right mind when she left. She had said terrible things to him, and she had meant most of them. At the time, she had indeed meant most of them.

“I did what you told me to do. You told me to stay away, because it was my fault for making you take that extra shift.” This makes Helena wince. She had said that and worse. “You told me to stay away, and I did.”

“You did,” she agrees.

“You said that you didn’t want anything to do with the firehouse. Ever again.”

“I did say that,” she agrees again.

“And yet here you are. With Lt. Bering. We were partners for eight years, H.G. Eight years, and you could talk to a stranger from the firehouse before you could talk to me?”

“I see how that looks,” Helena tells him, because she does see. “I didn’t mean to talk to her. I never _set out_ to talk to her. It was an accident that we came into contact.”

Wolly says, “If you and I had accidentally come into contact, you would have run to the other side of the street to get away.”

Helena coughs. “I can’t deny it. It’s true. I didn’t know what to say to you. I don’t know what to say to you now, other than I’m sorry, and I’m sorry, and I’m sorry.”

“We spent eight years in an ambulance together. We said everything to each other. And now you can’t say anything but that?”

“Is there anything _you_ want to say to _me_?”

“I want to say that I didn’t understand, I still _don’t_ understand, why I lost my best friend. Why you couldn’t have leaned on me.”

Helena sighs. “I couldn’t lean on anyone. I couldn’t even stand up; how could I possibly lean on anyone?” She doesn’t add that she couldn’t lean on him because she really had blamed him. He’d taken the extra shift, but then needed the night off; Helena can’t even remember why. She just remembers that she took the shift for him. But time has passed now. Time has passed, and she can almost see him as just himself, just Wolly, sitting beside her in that ambulance, day after day, month upon month, saving and losing lives. “Will you let me keep apologizing, at least?”

He bows his head, breathes out. “H.G., I have never been able to keep you from doing anything you want to do. Only a fool would make the attempt.”

“Then I will try again,” Helena tells him. “I’ll leave you alone tonight, but I’ll try again.”

Wolly nods.

Helena can see Myka standing alone, across the ballroom. She makes her way back to her, and Myka asks, “How did it go with Wolly? Are you two… speaking?”

Helena shakes her head. “I can’t fix it that quickly.”

“Then fix it slow,” Myka tells her.

Helena is not sure what it is—the words themselves, or the way Myka says them, or something else entirely, maybe even Myka’s shoes?—but she is overcome by an emotion she can’t quite yet name. She brings her hands to Myka’s face and leans toward her. She kisses her gently, on the mouth.

Her lips haven’t even left Myka’s fully before she feels Myka start to smile.

****

The waitstaff at this hotel is excellent: attentive, quick, helpful. Myka drops her napkin and instantly receives a clean one. Her plate is empty; it is whisked away. The level of wine in Myka’s glass drops by an inch, and it is immediately replenished. She is pretty sure she dropped her napkin only once and ate dinner only once, but as for the wine? She has no idea how much she’s had. She does know that she’s caring less and less about her shoes and more and more about the woman beside her, the woman who also seems to have lost track, just a little, of the level of wine in her own glass.

Have their chairs moved closer together? That’s possible, Myka thinks, because now when she leans, even a little, in Helena’s direction, their arms collide, and it is completely natural, somehow, that their hands would briefly join, and that they would smile at each other. It is even more natural that, as Jane Lattimer calls for everyone’s attention, because she would like to say some words in honor of the happy couple, their chairs should move even a bit closer, so that Helena can settle against Myka’s side, and if it makes sense then for Myka’s arm to rest against the back of Helena’s chair? Well, if it makes sense, then it makes sense, so… that’s what happens.

The Chief gives an eloquent toast to Artie, to his years of service, to his wisdom in realizing that Vanessa was unlikely to wait forever for him to make up his mind; and to Vanessa, for without the help of her and her colleagues, just about nobody in this room could do their jobs, including Artie, because at first she had basically brought him back to life, and then she brought him back to _life_. Without her, he wouldn’t still be in the firehouse, and without him in the firehouse… she says she’ll let everyone fill in their own joke there, and everyone laughs, even Helena—Myka can’t hear her, but she can _feel_ her laughing, just a little, gently.

****

Myka has never seen Firehouse 13’s people behave like this before. Wolly is dancing with Leena, holding her as if they are ballroom champions, and they are laughing; Pete and Amanda are swinging each other around like they’re on _Solid Gold_ circa 1985; Steve and Liam are dancing too, and Myka is just going to ignore the fact that their foreheads are touching, and if they in fact just kissed each other in a way that is far more than friendly, as she is pretty sure they did, tonight that is going to be their business and not hers. After the day they have all had, it is understandable. And she hopes that they and everyone else will understand, too, as she does what she’s been trying to do since the dancing started—she doesn’t even know the song that’s playing now; she just knows that it’s slow and she doesn’t want to wait anymore. She leans to Helena and says, “Will you please dance with me?”

Helena says, “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Myka forgets about her shoes and everything else; she forgets about Wolly and Leena and Steve and Liam and even Claudia and Todd, who she has noticed aren’t dancing yet but are eying each other from different tables. She forgets all that. She just thinks about Helena, thinks about how they are holding each other. How she can listen as Helena says into her ear, “I like this.” How she can let her lips touch Helena’s forehead as she says, “I like it too.”

****

There is a lot of dancing, and still more drinking, so much that Helena loses track of time completely. When she and Myka finally sit down for a breather, Myka rests her head against Helena’s shoulder and says, “I don’t think I can stand up again. Maybe ever.”

“Poor baby,” Helena laughs. She puts her arm around Myka, marveling at how easy that is to do, how nervous she had been before about touching her, how absolutely right it seems now. She presses a kiss to her head.

“Seriously,” Myka mumbles, “I’ve been awake since three this morning, and my god, Helena, that fire.”

“Are you really all right?”

“I’m really all right. I had a sort of a close call for a little minute, but I think I remembered this.” She’s still mumbling, almost into Helena’s neck. Helena finds this thrilling and disturbing.

“Close call?” Helena asks.

“The floor,” Myka sighs. “Was there and then it wasn’t.”

Helena has been trying, up until tonight and then also tonight, not to think about what it means that Myka is a firefighter. But the delay of the ceremony, the look in Myka’s eyes when she finally did arrive, and now this simple pronouncement about the floor… Myka is a firefighter. Helena does not yet know how to come to terms with that. She does not know for certain if she wants to come to terms with that, what it will mean if she lets herself. But this night, this head-spinning night, is showing her that she may have no choice in the matter anymore. These people are just as she remembers them, and she… wants to remember them. At least right now, she does want to, and she wants to keep her arm around Myka, but at the same time, she wants to never have to think about a floor that was there and then wasn’t.

“Don’t think so hard,” Myka says. She sits up, raises a hand, pushes her fingers through Helena’s hair, right at her neck. She leaves her hand there, on the nape; she doesn’t pull Helena toward her, just holds her neck. Helena shivers. “Tonight, everything’s fine,” Myka tells her.

They are staring at each other. Helena thinks they may be waiting for a sign—and then a sign comes to them. Amanda walks by them, leading Pete Lattimer by the hand. “Myka, your girlfriend looks really tired,” she says.

Myka begins, “She’s not my—” Then she stops. She says, “But maybe—” She drops her hand, looks down, looks up at Helena again, and Helena wants to kiss her again, for the indecision, for the way she won’t say it without permission, for the way this night has confused them both, pushed them in a direction, and if they weren’t ready? Helena wonders who’s really ready, ever, anyway.

Amanda laughs. She lets go of Pete, puts her hands on Myka’s shoulders, and drops a kiss on the top of her head. “Get a room,” she says. And now Pete takes her hand and does the leading.

“Oh god,” Myka says, “is she hooking up with Pete _again_? They do this all the time—they get together because of some best available option idea, and then I have to listen to ‘but we actually can’t stand each other!’ for weeks afterward.” She slumps down in the chair and crosses her arms.

Helena wonders if she even processed what Amanda said. Helena is letting herself find it an excellent idea, for reasons that she is choosing, as best she can, not to think through. “Myka,” she says.

“What?”

“Could you worry about Amanda and Pete later? Could you…” She licks her lips. “Could you think about Amanda’s suggestion instead?”

Helena sees that Myka is looking at her mouth. “I was trying not to think about that. Do you really want me to think about that?’

Helena licks her lips again. “I really want you to think about that.” She leans to Myka and kisses her, like she did the first time. This time, Myka doesn’t smile. This time, Myka kisses back.

****

They could not be standing any closer together at the desk as Myka hands over her credit card, and Helena says quietly, toothbrushes, just breathes it into Myka’s ear, and Myka had not previously known that that word could make her go weak in the knees, but she says to the clerk do you have toothbrushes, and he hands over two small packets, not saying anything about it, not even giving them a look of any sort about it, and Myka is mostly grateful but on some level she wants everyone who looks at her, at them, to know what this is about, to show that they know what this is about, and she has never wanted anyone to know this kind of thing about her, to read anything about any situation, but just _look_ at Helena, just _look_ at her! and Helena is going to go upstairs, to a hotel room, with Myka, and Myka does not do this, but if she is going to do this? The world needs to understand that Helena is the one she wants to do this with. Helena and no one else, and Helena has chosen Myka, too: it is miraculous to say, but Helena has chosen Myka too.

Now they are alone in the elevator, alone and so close and just about to put their mouths on each other, but the elevator stops and someone else gets on, so Helena turns around in Myka’s arms so her back is to Myka, but she pushes back against her, and Myka pushes too, and Helena has her hands on Myka’s, and she is pulling one down, past her hips, and one up, and Myka is trying as hard as she can to fight against where those hands want to take her hands, but she doesn’t want to fight, and her head is lighter than the air around them, and they are practically having sex in an elevator standing right next to someone else, and then that someone else leaves the elevator. It’s like a strange pause button, to suddenly be alone again; Myka can feel herself panting into Helena’s ear, as Helena’s hands still, and they just wait… but then they leave the elevator, and Myka is fumbling with the key card in front of the room, and Helena now is the one pressing behind _her_ , and she is already starting to work at the buttons of Myka’s shirt, and they barely get into the room before they absolutely cannot hold back anymore.

They are kissing deeply, urgently, and their hands are fumbling but dexterous at the same time: Helena has one arm curled around Myka’s neck, her other hand opening Myka’s shirt, and one of Myka’s hands is moving through Helena’s hair, getting no purchase at all on its frustratingly smooth length, while the other is beginning to move the dress out of the way, baring a shoulder.

Myka is not thinking clearly, but why would she want to be thinking clearly, when she knows that if she were thinking clearly she would not be here in this room, with her hands on Helena, Helena who has brought Myka back to life—she knows it now, now that Helena’s hands are on her. And it’s like her body has been asleep, as when a hand or an arm falls asleep, and as it starts to come back to life, the flow of new blood makes it prickle, makes it almost hurt.

She wonders if Helena feels the same, if she feels it yet, because Myka wants to bring Helena back to life too, and she doesn’t know if she can, but she can start tonight, and if it’s too much, too fast, too soon, then it will just have to be too much, too fast, too soon, but she should ask, she should make sure, so she says, Do you really want this?, and she is rewarded when Helena says, More than _this_. I want _you_.

Myka can’t remember if she genuinely thought she was going to die in that fire today. She knows only that this is what she crawled out of that building for, this is what she has been crawling toward, begging for, maybe since that first day in the bookstore, with the flyers and awkwardness and fumbling… maybe she took one look at Helena Wells that day and wanted nothing more than to be in this hotel room with her, lowering her body to this bed, taking her out of a beautiful dress as slowly as she can force herself to do, putting her mouth to the skin she exposes, listening to Helena say please, and more, and again, and then she says Myka, and the way she says that, it means Myka shouldn’t move slowly at all anymore.

And maybe the reason the world is spinning is that Myka’s had too much to drink, but maybe it’s because she’s so in love she might as well be drunk, all the time, oh god but maybe right now it’s because of the noises Helena just made, and maybe now because there’s no blood anywhere in Myka’s body except right where Helena has her hands, and if it’s happening too fast, still it’s happening, and she hopes Helena had not hoped to draw this out because tonight she certainly has no strength left to stop herself. She falls against Helena with a cry that is not a sigh or a sob, more like a laugh or a shout of joy. And if there are tears in her eyes? It is because she is alive and she knows it and she is thankful.

Tonight, Myka is alive, and she is in love. She is also, very quickly and very soundly, asleep.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

Helena wakes up. She has no idea where she is—this isn’t home; it’s too dark. She’s completely disoriented, sits up in confusion—and then she remembers, as she realizes she has no clothes on, the numbers on an LED clock are glowing faintly from a side table, and there is someone… there is Myka…. asleep beside her.

The clock tells her that it’s later in the morning than the darkness suggests, and while she for a moment considers trying to go back to sleep, she’s feeling quite awake now, and her teeth desperately need brushing. She slides out of bed and gropes for her bag, which she was fairly certain had fallen from her arm very near the door as she and Myka crashed through it last night. She feels an almost embarrassing rush of heat as she recalls that, and how she had acted before that, in the elevator… embarrassing because she almost could not control herself, yes, but also because she did not want to control herself, not at all.

She finds the bag, fishes out one of the toothbrush packets. Finds the other packet and leaves it on the bureau for Myka to find. Finds the bathroom, sees to her teeth. Finds her reflection, as it regards her, to be less appalling than it might have been—after a night of drinking, dancing, and, well, everything else, she’d expected redder eyes, at least. Her hair is really the greatest casualty of the night, and she regrets not having a brush to coax it back into smoother line.

There are robes waiting near the bathroom door, and each is bound with a strip of paper. She begins to rip one, stealthily, then nearly leaps in astonishment as it seems to start ringing—no, obviously, that’s a mobile phone. Not hers; it must be Myka’s. But where is it? She shakes the robe and quickly pulls it on, then goes in search—it has to be in one of Myka’s pockets, for she had no bag, but where in the world are her clothes?

How Myka’s jeans had ended up on the desk across the room, far from any other articles of clothing, Helena could not say. But there they are, and now Myka is awake and sitting up—she’s the disoriented one now—and Helena finds the phone, takes it to her wordlessly.

Myka clears her throat, hums, then answers with a relatively crisp, “Myka Bering.”

Helena pulls the window curtains open just a bit, so they can see a little, and gets back on the bed, next to Myka. She sets a pillow against the headboard and leans against it, turned on her side, watching. She does not know what to expect.

Myka has the sheet pulled up, modestly, almost to her neck. She’s saying, “Are you serious, Pete? It’s Sunday morning!” Now she looks over at Helena. “And I’m… busy. I hope.” She begins to lift an arm in Helena’s direction, and this is all the invitation, all the permission Helena needs; she moves closer and inserts herself under that arm, drapes one leg over Myka’s body. Myka says, “I am really busy. Can’t this wait till Monday?”

Helena can make out some of Pete’s words: she hears “fire” and “arson” and “alarms.” She doesn’t want to think about those things, though, not while she and Myka are still in this hotel room, because as long as they’re here, it can still be last night, and everything can be drinking and dancing and bodies and… Helena hooks one finger on the edge of the sheet, right where it meets Myka’s chest. She looks up at Myka, who says, “Pete, I really have to call you back later. Yes, later today, I promise!” She practically throws the phone to the nightstand and says, “How can you still look so incredible after the night we had?”

“That is very flattering, but please brush your teeth _right now_ ,” Helena tells her.

“What?” Myka has already undone the robe’s belt; Helena had barely looped it closed, and now Myka’s hands are starting to explore in a way that suggests she will be _taking her time_ in a way she did not, in a way that neither of them could possibly have done, last night.

“I think we’ll both enjoy this more if you get to kiss me. Go.”

Myka does as she’s told.

When she comes back, she says, as she’s pushing the robe out of the way, “I like taking you out of clothes.”

Helena tells her, “I like not having to take you out of clothes.”

Myka smiles. “So a head start is what you want.”

“I think I need one,” Helena says. “You’re more well-rested than I am this morning.” It’s a tease; she wants to tease Myka, wants to keep seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, feeling that they are that close, that together, even as Myka is touching her, very lazily, but in a way that is beginning to make her gasp again.

And Myka does laugh; she laughs and presses her lips to Helena’s neck. “I know, I know, I fell asleep so fast. I’m sorry, I was so tired already, and you really did wear me out.”

“Did I really?” Helena’s not sure, even as she’s asking, if she’s really asking.

Myka seems to understand. “You were amazing. You _are_ amazing.” She gives Helena a kiss that’s a promise of more.

Her next kiss is an appeal for more, and now Helena wants to reassure Myka, too, for the look in her eyes is intense, but there’s a question, a doubt, buried there. “You were too,” Helena says. “You are too. Right now. This minute. Oh my god, this very minute.” No one’s hands are lazy after that.

****

Morning has turned to afternoon by the time they emerge from the hotel. Out front, the valet brings Myka’s car first. Myka hugs Helena, a bit awkwardly, kisses her cheek, and says, “Duty calls.”

It is not until Helena is in her own car, driving toward the bookstore, that she realizes they made no plans to see each other again. Helena can’t, or doesn’t want to, imagine that this is all they are meant to have, but still… that neither of them thought to say anything about the future seems telling.

She is trying not to think about _how_ telling it might be as she arrives home, greets a highly resentful cat, and begins, alone, to reestablish the normal course of events.

****

Myka is clearly the last one, from yesterday’s fire, to make it to the firehouse to talk to Pete. She had figured it would be that way… but she hadn’t figured on everyone else hanging around on a day off just so they could give her a hard time.

She sees Todd first; he’s pretending to stow some gear on the truck.. “Lieutenant,” he greets her.

“Probie,” she says.

“Wedding was fun, wasn’t it?” he says, almost offhandedly. He might as well be wearing a sign that says “advance team.”

“Yes,” she says. She sees that he’s about to say something else, and she advises him, not unkindly, “Shut up, probie.”

“Will do,” he says. He drops the gear and hightails it out of the garage.

Then it’s on to Claudia and Wolly. Myka imagines that Wolly wouldn’t be inclined to participate in this… hazing, is what she’s starting to get the feeling of… but Wolly checks his watch as she walks by. He says to Claudia, “Does it seem a bit late in the day to you?”

“Why yes,” Claudia says. “Yes, Wolly, it does. I usually try to get out of bed earlier than this, but then again…” She chortles.

Myka ignores them.

Steve and Liam are lurking around a corner, but they actually look pleased, and not mockingly so, as they spring out at her.

“I don’t think you two should be saying anything at all to me,” Myka tells them.

“We aren’t,” Steve says. But he smiles widely.

“Do we need to have a talk?” she asks.

“Not quite yet,” Liam says.

“Maybe soon,” Steve adds.

“Maybe,” Liam agrees.

Myka says, “Okay.”

Then Liam says, “The thing is, Amanda told us that you’ve been… well, that you were interested in H.G. for a while. And we are honestly so happy for you, for both of you, because it’s you, and because it’s her.”

“Thanks,” Myka says. She doesn’t think she can say anything else, because… well, basically, she doesn’t know anything, because Helena hadn’t said anything about what might happen next. So they can be happy that it’s Myka, and happy that it’s Helena, but as to what that means tomorrow and the next day and the next? Myka doesn’t know anything. “Thanks,” she says again.

Steve says, “Amanda and Pete are still talking to the Chief. I think you can probably go on in.”

“Did Pete tell you anything? Does he know what’s going on?”

“Beats me. He asked all the questions you’d expect about a weird fire, but it’s pretty clear there’s something else too. I’m betting there’s either already been some weird fires like this. Or that Pete thinks there’s gonna be more.”

“Great,” Myka groans. Because what she needs right now are weird fires…

****

Amanda and Pete turn huge, expectant grins her way when she enters the Chief’s office. Chief Lattimer, too, smiles, but at least she doesn’t seem like her goal in life is to embarrass Myka. Myka already knows that’s one of Amanda’s chief goals, and if she and Pete are teaming up? Success is very likely.

“Okay,” Myka sighs. “Get it out of your system, and then can we get down to business?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says. “ _Can_ we get down to business? Or no, wait, haven’t you already spent the morning doing that?”

“Because as I understand it, you’ve been really _busy_ ,” Amanda adds.

“That’s enough,” the Chief says. “Especially from you two.”

Myka sits back and shakes her head at them.

“Yeah, okay,” Pete says. “The thing is, you know there was something seriously wrong with that fire. And this isn’t the first one like that. You need to keep quiet about this, by the way.”

“You need to get a better poker face,” Myka tells him, “because Steve just told me you thought that, and I’m guessing you didn’t say those words to him and Liam.”

Pete sighs. “No, I didn’t, but I trust them. I trust everybody in this house, given that it’s Mom’s, but I can’t say the same about the rest of the houses, or even about my own department. Something’s happening.”

“Do you have any evidence?” Myka asks.

“No, just a vibe. I was just telling Mom and Amanda, though, I feel like MacPherson’s acting… I don’t know. Like he’s got a secret, is the best I can describe it.”

Myka doesn’t like Pete’s boss, Capt. MacPherson. He, like Pete, is a police officer as well as a former firefighter, and he used to be on Truck 13, decades ago; he and Artie worked together, but they had some kind of falling out. Myka’s on Artie’s side, whatever it was, so she doesn’t like MacPherson. He’s seemed to her, on the few occasions she’s met him, like he has a lot of secrets, not just one.

“Just tell me what I’m dealing with,” Myka says now. “What was weird about these other weird fires?”

“I’m not convinced that the ignitions and spreads MacPherson signed off on are right,” Pete says. “I only worked one of them, then MacPherson made sure I didn’t get any of the others. I begged for this one in the middle of a meeting, when the call came in. He couldn’t turn me down without it looking weird, but I bet you that tomorrow morning? There’s gonna be a reason somebody has to take this case off my hands.”

Jane Lattimer says, “Pete would like us to keep looking into it. And I would like you, Myka, to take the lead on that, with Amanda as backup.”

“But what are we looking for?” Myka asks. “I’m not forensics.”

“No, but you know fire,” the Chief says.

Amanda says, “Too well.”

Chief Lattimer says, “Everyone in this room knows fire too well.”

And Pete adds, “I just want to keep all of us from getting to know it even more up close and personal. There’s too much of that.”

Myka nods. Everyone in this room has lost someone to fire: Myka of course lost Sam, and the Chief, she’d lost her husband, Pete’s father, when Pete was still very young. Despite that, Pete had wanted to be in the family business, had made it through the Fire Academy after leaving the Marines, but he’d been a firefighter for only a very short time before his mother had told him she wasn’t able to focus on her own job if he was out there. He’d actually been okay with that, as far as Myka had heard, and his transition to investigating fires, rather than fighting them, seemed to suit him. He was more comfortable carrying a gun than an axe anyway, he’d said.

And Amanda. When Amanda was in Iraq, she’d been in a battle that was a literal firefight: she’d lost three soldiers under her command, watched them burn to death, and she’d sworn that she was going to do everything in her power to see that nobody else had to die that way.

The Chief now says, “To that end: get out of here, the three of you, and make a plan for moving forward. I have paperwork from yesterday to keep me busy for the next week or so.”

In the hall, Pete’s phone rings. “Aw man,” he says. “It’s MacPherson, right on cue. I better take it, and then we can talk about the case I bet I won’t be on anymore.”

When they’re alone, Amanda says to Myka, “So?”

“So?” Myka parrots.

“Oh come on. You obviously had a _really good time_ last night. And this morning. In a related story, I have never seen your hair look this much like you grabbed a loose electrical wire.”

Myka says darkly, “I knew I should have stopped at home first.”

“You really did get a room, right? Because I know you were in no shape to drive anywhere, and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t either.”

Myka sighs. “We really did get a room. Although why you’re asking, I don’t know; you clearly told everyone that already.”

Amanda protests, “I didn’t have to tell anybody anything. They were all there last night, and while _you_ may not have been fully aware of the extent to which the two of you were joined at the hip—and other places—everyone else certainly was.”

“Oh god. Was it that bad?”

“Let me put it this way: even if I were allowed to mention ukuleles again, I would never need to. Because last night was a gift that is going to keep on giving and giving and giving. You would have to bench everyone in this firehouse—twice!—and _then_ cover their mouths with duct tape, if you wanted to keep it under wraps.” Amanda has a wide smile normally, but her smile now is _enormous_.

Myka can’t think of a thing to say. This is why she never does things like this: because you want to kick yourself afterwards, because you can never live it down, because you lose everyone’s respect.

But Amanda goes on: “And not a single one of us has ever seen you so happy. Ever. Or H.G., come to think of it, and she used to be a reasonably happy person, before. So yes, we are going to make your life hell. But we are going to do it because we love you and we are happy for you and, oh yeah, we are also more than a little jealous of you.”

This makes Myka blush. Then she decides she needs to get at least a little of her own back, so she says, “Well, speaking of happy, or not, or however it turns out this time, aren’t you the one who went home with Pete?”

“I did go home with Pete. Or, rather, he came home with me.”

“And what exactly is the status there?”

“We had a really good time. Not as good a time as you had, clearly, because we managed to get ourselves over here to talk about fires at a reasonable hour, but yes. We’re good.”

“Good like you’re going to refrain from taking out a hit on him? Or good like…”

Amanda smiles more quietly. “Good like maybe we’re together.”

That is completely new. “You and Pete are _together_?”

“Don’t give me any grief. You can only do that if you’re single too, and guess what? You’re not single.”

Myka, even more uncomfortable now, says, “I don’t know what I am.”

“Well, if the two of you last night weren’t the definition of ‘together,’ I don’t know what that word means. When are you seeing her again?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t… I mean, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? How can you not know? You’re not some person who just bangs a girl at a wedding and that’s that.”

“Don’t say that. I didn’t… do that.”

“From where I’m standing, it’s starting to look like you did.”

“Well, she didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want to…”

“God, Myka, she didn’t sleep with you just to be polite, okay? Get out your phone and _call her_.”

“We have to talk about this fire thing, though.”

“Not until after you _call your girlfriend_.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Fine. Call that girl you banged at that wedding we all went to. Because I think she’s into you. Though I don’t know why, because you do not have a brain in your head.”

“I’m not the one who’s seeing Pete Lattimer.”

“That’s a fair point,” Amanda says. “Still, call that girl you banged at that wedding.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Only if you call her.”

****

Helena is working on a restoration when her telephone rings. She thinks for just a moment that she should ignore it, should place this piece of tissue on this sadly damaged hinge… but something tells her to set it aside. She does, and she feels that familiar protest of her shoulders as they move out of their hunch—plus she feels a pull that has nothing to do with having leaned over a book for an hour.

When she answers, she hears Myka say, “I’m sorry.”

Helena tries very hard to keep relief out of her voice as she says, “What are you sorry for?”

“Outside the hotel earlier. I’m an idiot. What I should have said was, I think we are incredible together, so please, tell me when I can see you again.”

“I could have, should have, said that too.” Now she wishes she had been the one to call Myka. But she had been sure of what would happen once she began to repair a book’s spine. She had had no such certainty about the course of any conversation with Myka.

“Well. I guess that makes us both idiots.”

“That seems correct. On this topic, at least.” Helena likes the intimacy of Myka’s voice in her ear; it reminds her of last night. She wants that feeling back… “Tonight,” she says on impulse.

“Really?” Myka asks. “Do you want to go out? Can I take you out?”

“No. Come here. Perhaps you can talk Dickens into forgiving me for not coming home last night.”

“Well, I’ll try, but I think he’s a little too young to understand things like that just yet. Maybe when he’s a teenager, we’ll sit down and have that talk, but right now we should just say that maybe you got really tired and had to stay downtown—”

“Myka,” Helena says. “Please bring your toothbrush.”

Not unexpectedly, Myka makes a token protest. “My shift starts really early tomorrow,” she says.

Helena’s ready for that one: “Dickens will be thrilled to have company for his dawn, or I should say pre-dawn, patrol of the apartment.”

“Okay,” Myka says. “I may be a little while here; we’re supposed to be planning this… but it doesn’t matter. I’ll call you in a while, is that all right?”

Helena says, “That’s more than all right. I’m working on a book, so if I don’t answer, it’s because I’ve got glue on my hands, not because I’m avoiding you.”

“You’re working on a book,” Myka says, and Helena can’t immediately decipher the tone in her voice, but she likes it. She likes it very much indeed.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

In the early morning, in the not-yet light, Myka looks at the bed she is regretfully leaving behind. Helena is on her side, facing Myka, and Dickens—who has shown absolutely no inclination to patrol anything whatsoever—is now curled against her back, exactly where Myka was half an hour ago, exactly where she would like to be again.

She’s tempted, on the one hand, to slip away quietly and let them both keep on sleeping. On another hand, she’s even more tempted to crawl back into Helena’s bed. But on the third, most practical hand, she realizes that while she does have to leave, she also needs to say something to Helena, even if it’s only… well, she knows what she wants to say. Because she feels it, and it’s so very strong, but it’s too soon. It is just too soon.

So instead she goes to the bed and sits on its edge, right inside the curve of Helena’s body. Helena opens her eyes slowly, dreamily. “Don’t go,” she says. Sleep clots her voice.

“I don’t want to,” Myka whispers. She leans down, and they share a deep, lush, extravagant kiss, the kind that comes only after great sweetness. “I don’t want to make the same mistake as yesterday, so tell me. When do I get to kiss you again? Tonight?”

“I’m playing chess in the evening,” Helena says. “But after?”

“Yes, after. Whenever you can. Whenever you want to.”

“I want to right now.”

Myka arrives at the firehouse right on time for her shift. But she is usually twenty minutes early.

****

Pete stops by the firehouse in the afternoon, ostensibly to give Myka the information he’s managed to gather, on the sly, about the fires that have raised his hackles. He hands her a stack of paper at least an inch thick, saying, “Paper seems safer. More secure. Weird, huh?”

“It’s a fire hazard,” Myka says.

“Right. Where’s Amanda?”

“Weight room.”

He waves his fingers in a funny little salute, then takes off down the hall, almost skipping.

Myka looks at what’s in her hands: basically a book-length manuscript. She decides she’ll have the most privacy on the truck, so that’s where she goes to read.

Some time later, she’s only halfway through the material, but she thinks she might be feeling as much of a “vibe” about these fires as Pete is.

She goes to find Amanda. “I want to see that building again. Come with me after shift?”

When they reach the street, it’s mostly quiet; the neighborhood’s residents are probably all inside having dinner—or, Myka hopes, fireproofing their houses. She notices that the trees have already been pruned back from the electrical wires; she bets that the city’s crews were out here by seven this morning, courtesy of Jane Lattimer and her ability to make people move a lot more quickly than they had ever thought they could.

She and Amanda duck under the scene tape. It’s a little odd that no one’s put up fencing yet—kids love to explore burnt-out buildings—but Myka supposes the intervening Sunday didn’t do anyone’s scheduling any favors.

The only person around is an older woman, tiny, white-haired; she’s walking an equally tiny, white-haired dog along the sidewalk across from the apartment building. She sees Myka and Amanda and calls to them, “Are you the police? You shouldn’t be over there unless you’re the police!”

“We’re firefighters,” Myka calls back. “It’s okay. We were here on Saturday.”

This news seems to pique her interest; she hustles her way across the street to them, practically dragging her dog. “Was it as awful as it seemed?” she asks as she draws near.

Myka hates rubberneckers; it’s all she can do to keep from curling her lip into a sneer. Amanda says, quickly, “It wasn’t good, but we did our jobs.”

“Such a shame,” the woman clucks. “And a surprise, too.” Her dog, who seems to have recovered from the brisk pace, starts sniffing at Myka’s shoes.

“Fire’s almost always a surprise,” Myka says. She’s getting impatient; she would really like to get their look around and then get out of here. It’s not that she’s spooked by the idea that she almost… well, all right, she’s spooked. Yes. Because it was bad.

“No, I mean because the inspectors were here just last week! Debbie, she lives in 316—well, she used to live in 316, I suppose—told me that there were two people from the fire department here. She ran into them on their way out, and they said they were inspecting, because they do that sometimes, and that the building looked good to them.”

Myka now has snapped to—all spookiness gone. “Yes, I can see how it might seem more surprising in that case, but fires aren’t always… predictable,” she says. “Ma’am, we need to take another look at the scene, so if you wouldn’t mind…”

Once she’s gone, Amanda says, “Yeah, now I feel a _whole lot_ better about this.”

“What is going on?” Myka asks. “What have we stepped into?” And why, she goes on to ask herself, do they have to have stepped into it _now_?

They’re both gazing at the structure. The roof is mostly gone—once the crews had gotten all the people out, they’d vented in an attempt to save at least some of it, but it was too late. The eighth floor has pretty much collapsed in on itself, but the other outer walls are still there, as are the majority of the fire escapes. “Let’s go up,” Myka suggests.

They decide they’ll look into 522, since they both obviously have a pretty good idea of what happened there, and just how long it had taken—or hadn’t taken—for events to take their disastrous turn.

Going up, no gear, is a lot easier than coming down suited up, “particularly with a grab,” Amanda says. “That kid was pretty heavy for a kid.”

“Remind me to make sure you can still carry _me_ ,” Myka says as she follows Amanda up the ladders.

“I see that I really am going to have to do some reciprocal benching. Maybe I’ll bench one of the boys instead of you, just to keep things interesting.”

“Bench Pete and then we’ll have something to talk about.”

“He’s pretty beefy,” Amanda concedes.

A discussion of whether Pete needs to lose weight takes them to the fifth floor, and soon they’re both kneeling on the escape outside the window Amanda broke. “My god, Myka,” Amanda says.

Myka considers herself reasonably seasoned, reasonably tough. But as she looks into that bedroom, looks down to see how far she would have fallen, if that beam hadn’t held, and if she hadn’t held that beam…

Amanda says, “H.G. can’t ever see this. I mean, if you two are really going to… she can’t ever see this.”

“Why would she?” Myka asks.

“I don’t know. But she can’t.”

“She’s seen a lot.”

“She hasn’t seen this, and she sure hasn’t seen it with the idea of you in it.”

Myka knows Amanda’s right. Myka can’t quite handle the idea of _herself_ in it, and the thought of trying to reverse the situation and put Helena in it? She has to sit back on the metal mesh of the escape and catch her breath.

They’re back on the ground when they see a Fire Inspection car drive up—and Pete’s boss emerges from it.

“Wonder how this’ll go,” Amanda murmurs to Myka.

“Not well,” Myka murmurs back.

He’s surprised to see them, as he would be, and they try to give plausible reasons for being there: the fire was really bad, they’d got some people out but not others, they’d had to leave the scene earlier than usual because a lot of them had somewhere to be.

“Oh yes,” MacPherson says. “Artie’s _wedding_. I’m sure that was.. . pleasant.”

Myka knows she shouldn’t antagonize him, but the wedding was important, and special, and she is not going to make dismissive small talk with him about it. She asks, bluntly, “What was the source here?”

He seems to take no offense. Electrical, he says, not up to code, when will these construction workers ever learn, but of course this was built some time ago, and you know this city and lax enforcement, historically.

“And no accelerants or anything,” Myka says, as if just to confirm something she already knows.

“No evidence of that,” he agrees. “That I could find, that is.”

Amanda says, “Wow, so you’re taking this one yourself. You know, we thought Pete had this case, since he was on the scene on Saturday.”

“I needed his expertise on another matter. But I’d have imagined you knew that already. Aren’t you and Inspector Lattimer… friendly?”

Myka does not like the way MacPherson is looking at Amanda, so she says, “We’re all friendly with Pete. Given our chief, it’s a good idea.”

“Doubtless,” MacPherson says, but he doesn’t seem satisfied.

“Well,” Myka says, “I guess I’ve seen enough. Amanda?”

“I guess I saw enough of it two days ago,” Amanda says.

****

“If that was faulty wiring, I’m hanging up my boots,” Amanda fumes when they’re back in the car. “In a middle floor? I could buy electrical, like some idiot with an extension cord, but I’m really supposed to believe that an electrical contractor suddenly decided at floor five that he’d had enough with building codes?”

“Yeah,” Myka agrees. “And if there wasn’t an accelerant? I think a new kind of fire might have evolved.”

“So why isn’t anybody but Pete raising a flag on these things?”

“I don’t know.” Myka chews on her lip. “Let me think about it. But tell Pete to back way off, okay? I wouldn’t put it past MacPherson to have figured out that he gave me those reports earlier today. Let MacPherson think it’s me, not Pete, who’s got the suspicions.”

Amanda says, “Ooh, can I tell Pete to say something around MacPherson like ‘That Lt. Bering, she’s such a pain’? He’d love that.”

“Not as much as you would.”

“I thought that went without saying.”

****

After Helena and Caturanga have exchanged the usual pleasantries, after the tea has been brewed and the chess board set up, Caturanga asks, “And how was the wedding you attended this weekend?”

“It was… delightful,” Helena says. Completely inadequate word, and yet.

“And your firefighter?” he asks. “I presume she was delightful as well?”

“What?”

“My dear, you may not have noticed, but you have lost two games already, on gambits that you could under normal circumstances counter if you’d just been awakened from a sound sleep. Perhaps even while you were still _in_ that sound sleep. And this game, in which you have now moved your king back and forth no fewer than seven times, is a draw. Which you also have not noticed. All of this leads me to suspect that your mind is… elsewhere.”

Dickens, who is sitting beside Caturanga waiting for anything resembling attention to come his way, meows in exasperation.

“Your derision is on this occasion justified, Mr. Dickens. It was no great exercise in deductive reasoning.”

Helena sighs. “Am I that legible?”

“I have known you for many years,” he says, very lightly. “This is the first time I have seen this… aspect. And although you may not believe it, I was young once myself.”

“I’m hardly young,” Helena says.

“Perhaps not. But the look in your eyes? Quite youthful indeed. My question is, is this firefighter worthy of such a look?”

Helena is indignant. “Of course she is!”

“I shall have to judge that for myself. Should I ever meet her.”

“You shall have to apologize to her for doubting her worth, on pain of no further chess, should you ever meet her.”

“But when will that happen, my dear?”

“Never, if I have anything to do with it.”

“I think you doubt her yourself.”

“I most certainly do not. And never have. I wouldn’t have given her the Forster if I did.”

“That’s right, the Forster. A firefighter with such knowledge. I am still dumbstruck.”

Helena knows she should not be letting herself be frustrated. “You are doing this on purpose!”

“Of course I am! I haven’t this much fun in ages!”

Now Helena laughs. “Oh, all right. I see. _Would_ you like to meet her? If she’s willing?”

“I would. She has put this look in your eyes.”

Fifteen minutes later, after Myka has worried repeatedly into Helena’s ear via the phone that he won’t like her at all, and besides she might still smell a little smoky, not to mention she doesn’t know nearly enough about chess, Helena is saying, “Caturanga, this is Myka Bering. Myka, this is my chess partner, Caturanga. He is co-owner of the bookstore, and also my teacher: had he restored that Forster, it would be a work of art.”

“It’s a work of art now,” Myka says in sweet defense.

Caturanga clears his throat. “Ms. Bering. I suggested to Helena, some weeks ago, that it was a surprise that a firefighter would know the Forster biography of Dickens.”

“Continue,” Helena says.

“Ahem. I hereby retract that statement.”

“And?”

“And my retraction is not made under duress, I assure you. Prior to my meeting you, a certain someone may have made a chess-related threat of sorts regarding same, but now that I have met you? It is entirely on my own initiative that I say, Helena was quite correct. You seem a woman of exceptional intellect and character, one whom I would be delighted—”

“All right,” Helena interrupts. “Trim your sails, sir.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Myka says. “I’m kind of enjoying it.”

“Oh, I really believe we should keep this one, Helena. She’s far more appreciative of my rhetoric than is small Mr. Dickens.”

Myka says, “I’m pretty sure the only rhetoric Dickens appreciates is ‘I just filled your bowl.’ And the occasional ‘Chuzzlewit.’”

Caturanga says, “Yes, I’ve learned that I have you, via the cat, to thank for Helena’s sudden interest in the less familiar, even, shall we say, minor, characters in Dickens’s oeuvre. I believe she wishes to impress you by matching your comprehensive knowledge.”

Helena watches with fondness as Myka rolls her eyes. “I don’t have comprehensive knowledge. It’s _on the internet_.”

“And yet she must take her list and try them out for sound, with me as her audience. I have been subjected to Pirrip, Magwitch, Pickwick—”

“Well, they aren’t minor,” Myka says.

“Hm. Yet also Datchery, Flintwinch, Peggotty, Landless, et cetera. I myself maintain that there is nothing wrong with the occasional hearty ‘Copperfield,’ but Helena is so much more… refined than I.”

“I see why you two get along,” Myka says.

Caturanga tilts his head at her. Helena has seen precisely this look on him before, most recently when he told her that their “succession plan” paperwork was awaiting her signature. But all he says now is, “I see why you two do, as well.”

****

Much later, lying quietly in bed, in the dark, wrapped around Helena just as she had been that morning (marveling that this is true), Myka realizes that something has been rattling around in her head since she and Amanda left the site of the fire. Now, she finds, her mind is clear enough, calm enough, that she can finally make sense of the noise.

She sits up, and Helena asks, a little groggily, “What’s wrong?”

“I have to call Pete.”

“It’s late.”

“I know. But it’s important.” She finds her phone.

“Myka?” Pete says when he answers. “Now I’m the one who’s busy. Can it wait?”

“Tell Amanda I’m sorry, but it’s basically her fault. Well, hers and Helena’s. She told you, didn’t she, about what happened this evening?”

“Yeah. But I don’t know what to do about it.”

“I think I have an idea. Amanda asked me why nobody but you is raising a flag on these weird fires.”

“Okay…”

“But what if they did?”

“If they did, then we’d know they raised a flag. Duh.”

“No, Pete. Here’s what I think you need to do: look for any notes, or complaints, or _anything_ , that’s been filed _but then withdrawn_ about these fires. And look…” Myka doesn’t even want to imagine this is possible, but… “look for any reports of damage to firefighters’ houses, or cars, or anything like that. Can you do that?”

“Shouldn’t I look to see if anybody’s being paid off? Isn’t that more likely?”

“You’d need warrants for that, I think. And once you start getting warrants…”

“I really start attracting attention. Yeah, okay. I’ll see what I can do. May take a few days.”

“Be careful,” she tells him.

“Yeah. You too. You know, you should really think about getting some forensics under your belt. You’d be pretty good at this job.”

“I have a job.”  Though it’s getting more complicated than it needs to be… “Night, Pete. I’m sorry I bothered you—tell Amanda I’m sorry too.”

“She can hear you. Hey to H.G.”

“ _She_ can hear _you_. We might as well be on speaker.”

“Not anymore,” he says, and disconnects.

Myka leans back on her pillow.

Helena, still on her side, turns her head back to look at Myka. “That sounded… ominous. Are you in any danger?”

“No more than usual.” Myka realizes it sounds too flippant the minute she says it. She tries again. “I don’t know. I’d rather just reassure you, but I don’t know.”

“I’d rather you be honest with me.”

“Then honestly? I’d rather not talk about it. Anything I’m thinking is just something I’m thinking; there’s no evidence yet. Anyway, I’d much rather be thinking about us. I can’t believe it’s only been two days… let’s concentrate on us.”

“I am _happy_ to do so,” Helena says. “Let me take this opportunity to show you how happy.”

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

The next several weeks are quiet, and Myka starts to relax a little. The engines and ambulances of 13 face and fight normal fires, and the rest of the city’s fires seem, mainly, normal too. Pete hasn’t been able to gather much information—or rather, he hasn’t been able to make his way through the thickets of reports in a way that won’t draw attention, so he’s asking around, as casually as he can, and Myka and Amanda are too. They hear of a couple of firefighters across town who were in a car accident… but of course that could be due to anything at all. Someone’s wife got mugged; someone else’s house was vandalized… again, anything. The firefighters in the car crash seem to have worked one of the weird fires… but Pete can’t find anything about complaints from them, so it seems like a dead end. He grumbles that his department, that the fire department as a whole, really ought to keep better records that are easier to access. Myka points out to him that if there’s anybody who can start shaking trees so that smarter record-keeping falls out? Pete’s probably related to her.

Myka’s also been trying to find out about the residents of the apartment building. It still seems weird to her that the fire started on the fifth floor. If there was a target, they, or it, had to be there, or possibly on six. Couldn’t be lower; there had been no guarantee that the fire would touch anything from four down to one, because fire generally goes up. And she thinks seven and eight are out, too, because even with an accelerant, if the call had come soon enough, they might have saved those floors. So five or six, probably five… but she’s not the police. She can find names easily enough, do a little basic research. Not much more than that.

She and Amanda have gone back to the neighborhood, hoping they might run into the dog-walking lady again, that she could tell them more… but even though they’ve gone in the evening, like before, and tried early in the morning too, they haven’t seen her. And the building site’s fenced now. Dead ends all around.

So Myka’s relaxing a little. And one of the things she’s relaxing into is the one thing that is emphatically not a dead end: her growing closeness with Helena.

****

Myka spends most, if not quite all, of her non-shift nights at Helena’s apartment now. She never minded working nights before, but now she resents those hours, because they mean she goes to her own house to sleep, alone, during the day. She has blackout curtains for the purpose, and melatonin pills, but she’s finding it harder and harder to sleep at all without Helena beside her.

They had gone to Myka’s house together once, because Helena had said, “But I don’t even know where you live. I mean, I know the address, but I don’t have any idea of what sort of house you live in.”

“I practically live at the firehouse, so yes, you do.”

“Seriously.”

“It’s a generic little box, because like I said, I practically live at the firehouse. But we can go there if you want.”

Upon seeing the place, Helena had said, in a carefully tactful tone, “You misled me. It isn’t a generic little box. It’s a generic medium-sized box.”

Which made Myka laugh. “I told you. Basically it’s a storage space for the books.” In fact, the primary reason she’d decided on this generic box over other generic boxes was that this one had walls against which bookcases could stand. “I looked at a place,” she says to Helena, “that I swear, had only _one_ wall that didn’t have a window or a weird angle or something like that. You could own maybe four shelves’ worth of books. Who could possibly live like that?”

That had made Helena kiss her and say, “That’s a very good question. As a reward for asking it, here’s another question: where is your bedroom?”

And while that night was just fine, it is still the only one they have spent in the generic medium-sized box of a house.

****

They take Dickens to the vet together; he’d been once, soon after his rescue from the tree, for a quick exam and vaccinations, but now that he’s getting older, it’s probably time to make sure, as Myka puts it, that she doesn’t actually have to have that awkward talk with him.

When they go to pick him up after his surgery, they receive a surprise: Dickens is not in fact Mr. Dickens. He is in fact Ms. Dickens. The vet reassures them that it’s often hard to tell, when cats are very young, and Dickens had apparently been even younger, at the time of his rescue, than he appeared to be. Than she appeared to be.

Myka asks Helena, “So should we change his name—her name—to Charlotte Dickens?”

“Why?” Helena asks back.

“Okay, Charles,” Myka says to him—her—“but don’t blame me if the other cats tease you on the playground. It’s all your other mom’s fault.”

Myka doesn’t realize what she’s said until much later, when she’s at the firehouse, in the weight room with Amanda. “How soon is too soon?” she asks.

Amanda, who is on the floor doing crunches while holding a twenty-five pound weight against her chest, glares up at her. She finishes her set and says, “First, not while I’m in the middle of that. Second, why do you always ask questions that you have to explain? Why don’t you explain first, _then_ ask the question?”

“Because you tell me I take too long to explain things, and I should just cut to the chase. That was the chase.”

“But If I can’t _understand_ the chase… okay, fine: How soon is too soon for what?”

“To imply—or maybe I mean to suggest that I’ve been assuming—or that I’m starting to assume—”

“Okay, _now_ you need to cut to the chase.”

“I said something to Helena that I think she could have taken to mean that I think we’re… you know.”

“I’m pretty sure you already are _you know_. I think you’ve been _you know_ -ing since the night of the wedding. Unless the definition of _you know_ has changed since I was a teenager.”

“I don’t mean _that_. Obviously we’re doing _that_.”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize that _that_ and _you know_ were two different things. I don’t read as much as you do; my vocabulary’s not as big.”

Myka sighs. “Look, I said something that suggested pretty strongly that she and I are in a relationship.”

“You _are_ in a relationship.”

“No, I mean a _relationship_ relationship.”

“A relationship relationship. So one in which you don’t just like her, you _like_ like her?” Amanda starts laughing.

“Why do I talk to you, exactly?”

She keeps on laughing, saying, “Oh, I crack myself up.”

Myka says, “That is not a good reason for me to talk to you.”

“Well, how’s this: I’m pretty sure you’re already in a relationship relationship. It’s been, what, almost three months now? And it’s not like you’re really _dating_ , are you? Not since your little ‘we’d better take this a little slower’ experiment that lasted all of, what, two weeks?”

“We did date then.”

“And you were all kinds of miserable. But it was cute when she showed up that day at the firehouse looking for you.”

Myka had been at home; she’d turned her phone off so she could sleep. Helena had ended up having lunch with Wolly and Artie, and she’d allowed to Myka, later on, that she and Wolly had made some progress. Things were… almost good. “Not quite, though. And not as good as they would have been if you’d been there,” she told Myka.

“I don’t usually make awkward social situations any easier,” Myka said. “That is not my specialty.”

“I’m not saying you would have made it easier. Just better.”

The “take-it-slower” experiment ended soon thereafter.

Amanda adds, “You basically live at her place. You are out-of-your-mind in love with her. She seems fairly out-of-her-mind in love with you. And there’s that cat, too; I bet you’ve got more pictures of that thing on your phone than most people have of their kids.”

“That’s what I said it about, was Dickens. Turns out he’s a girl, by the way. We took him to the vet, and—”

“And on that, ladies and gentlemen of the _relationship_ relationship jury, I rest my case,” Amanda intones.

Myka is fairly certain Amanda’s right. But she can’t decide what step to take next.

****

Fate can take decisions out of our hands.

So can fire.

Helena is having a busy day at the bookstore. Some days are busy because she has scheduled an author visit, or a book club meeting, or a reading for children. This is not one of those days; this is one of the strange, unpredictable days on which everyone in the city seems to need a book as a birthday present, or for a journey, or because of a compulsion, or even just to serve as something to hold in front of the face on the bus or subway to ward off the rest of the world. Helena wonders whether these days might line up with the phases of the moon somehow. It is as plausible an explanation as anything else.

She does not answer her telephone, cannot even take a moment to glance at it, when it rings at approximately five-thirty in the evening, because it is still rush hour, and everyone who commutes has been seized by a desire to read. She is seeing to yet another customer when it rings again a minute later. It rings again thirty seconds after that, and she says, “I beg your pardon,” to a slightly harried young woman who has a small boy clinging to her hand.

Her telephone does not know who is calling. “Hello?” Helena says.

“H.G.?” she hears. Wolly. Why would Wolly be calling her repeatedly, if indeed the other calls had been…

“H.G.,” he says again. But she knows this tone. She knows it, because she heard it for eight years; it is his placating tone, his “don’t get excited, ma’am” tone. His “the doctors are doing all they can” tone.

“What—what—” But then she draws in a breath, because there is only one “what,” because there is only one reason. Which means there is really only one question: “Is she alive? Just tell me, is she alive?”

“She is,” he says. “She is. Don’t panic, H.G. Don’t panic. Come to Eastside General. I’m calling from the emergency room. Can you do that? Will you be safe to do that?”

Whether she is safe, will be safe, is not the issue, does not matter. She pushes everyone in the bookstore out; they will probably never come back again after this, except for the harried young woman, who’d heard Helena’s words on the telephone. As she’s leaving, she takes Helena’s hand and squeezes it. It is what Helena needs—just one second of grace. Then the small boy becomes impatient and drags her out the door.

Later, Helena will have no memory of the drive to the hospital, if she obeyed lights, signs, limits.

In the past, the past that now feels so distant to her, she had seen so many of her paramedic colleagues fall into relationships with firefighters—and then find themselves faced with the inevitable scares that went with such liaisons—that she and Wolly had kept a mostly mocking tally of the poor misguided souls in their ambulance. “Never a firefighter,” they’d sworn to each other. “Never ever entangled with a firefighter.”

And now, in this terrifyingly present moment, Helena is running into the hospital emergency room, struggling to blink tears from her eyes, grabbing Wolly by the shoulders of his uniform, gasping, “Where is she? Where is she?” about a firefighter.

****

She is behind a curtain, on a bed. Amanda is standing on one side of the bed, and Chief Lattimer is on the other.

Amanda looks up, sees Helena. “She’s all right,” Amanda says immediately.

“I tried to tell her,” Wolly says.

“She is going to be fine,” Chief Lattimer says, moving aside so that Helena can take her place.

“Going to be?” Helena looks at all of them, then down at Myka, who has her eyes closed.

“Is!” Wolly maintains firmly.

“Absolutely is,” Amanda agrees. “Chief, use clearer words next time.”

“Amanda, you may be dating my son, but insubordination is not—”

Helena says, “None of that makes any difference at all! What matters is whether Myka is all right!”

“If everybody would calm down,” Myka rasps slowly, from the bed, “I think they would _see_ that I am all right.”

“You are not all right,” Helena chokes. She leans down and takes Myka’s hand. “If you were all right, they would not have brought you here.”

“It’s a precaution. Helena, it’s just a precaution. I fell. It knocked my mask off.  I look bad because Amanda had to drag me out, but she actually is pretty strong and could do it because I’m not beefy like Pete.” Helena hears Amanda chuckle. “I’m all right. I wouldn’t be lying here talking to you if I weren’t all right. I’m not even on oxygen, okay? My lungs are fine; I’m fine. It was just a normal fire, and I tripped and fell, but I’m fine.”

“I’m not fine,” Helena says.

“I see that. It’s okay. You don’t have to be, not right now.”

Helena leans over Myka and kisses her with lips that are trembling from relief and, still, fear.

“It’s okay,” Myka says again when Helena pulls back. She felt the tremors, Helena knows.

“I love you,” Helena tells her.

“That’s more than okay,” Myka says. “Can we go home now?”

****

They reach the apartment, and Helena darts away from Myka, saying quickly, “I’ll run a bath for you.”

When she comes back, Myka hasn’t moved; she’s right near the door. “I need a bag,” she says. “For my clothes. I don’t want Dickens to get in them, and they’ll make the apartment smell awful, anyway.”

Helena fetches a large plastic bag, and Myka pulls her boots off, puts them in first, then starts to tug her T-shirt off. “Wait,” Helena says. “Let me.” She goes to Myka, draws the shirt up and over her head. She pulls Myka’s hair free of its braid; it smells terrible, acrid, and Helena almost starts crying again. “I love you,” she says as she pulls the rest of the smoky, sooty clothes from Myka’s body, presses against her, kisses her smoky, sooty lips, tastes how close she came, could always come, to not being here at all. “I love you.” She has not said these words to Myka before today, and Myka has never said them to her, but now they are all she wants to say. “I love you,” she says again.

“I love you too,” Myka says. To Helena’s eyes, today, out of her clothes, she looks very thin, almost frail. Like she could fall over. Helena knows that this is an illusion; Myka is one of the strongest women she has ever met. Her hands, her arms, her legs—she is all power. Helena tries to concentrate on what she knows to be true, instead of what her fear is showing her.

Myka moves to take Helena’s clothes off now, too, but Helena stops her, says, “Wait. The bath is for you. I want to concentrate on you.”

Myka nods.

Smoke is dense but insinuating at the same time; its wisps, for Helena, have always evoked intimations of evil, and when it comes in walls it is just that: walls that Myka and the others must fight their way through, fight against. Fight against and lose to, all too often.

Now, in the bath, the steam is heavy in the air, but steam is never suffocating in the way smoke is. Steam is viscous, running like syrup into the lungs, soothing, smoothing.

Now it feels like love, like something to drown in.

Myka sinks down into the water, as if she does want to drown in it, and she closes her eyes and sighs, as if it really is love.

Then she looks up at Helena and says, “I’ll understand if you don’t want to get in here with me. But I really wish you would.”

“There is nowhere I don’t want to be with you. I love you.”

“Then please.”

Helena nods. She undresses, and Myka watches her. Myka’s face, with its intense features, etched as they are with the knowledge of so many awful things, creases of worry lined now with the tiny grit of cinders, this face that Helena loves, watches her. Myka’s eyes are as cinders themselves when Helena comes to her, leans over her, climbs into the water with her, onto her.

Helena puts her lips on Myka’s again, but something of the dull opacity of the smoke has made its way into her mouth; Myka does not taste like Myka, so Helena kisses her and kisses her and kisses her until she is herself again, until they taste like themselves together, until they are surging together and the water is threatening to spill out of the tub with their every rise and fall.

But Myka gasps, “Wait,” and Helena stills, terrified that she is hurt, from the fire or because Helena herself has done something wrong. “I’m all right,” Myka says, reading her mind, “but I’m still smoky. I want to be clean. I don’t want to finally tell you I love you and then…”

“I don’t care,” Helena says.

“I do.”

So Helena takes up a cloth, the soap, and her hands have been all over Myka, have been everywhere on Myka’s body, but this is different. This is the slow beginning of something different; it is not fast and hot like a fire at all, but instead like the water they are bathing in, the water and the love they are drowning in.

And at some point Myka is clean enough, and she pulls Helena against her, and murmurs into her ear, into the steam, “I love you. I should have told you before. If anything had really happened today, and I hadn’t told you… so I’m telling you. I’ll tell you every day, I love you—” and she keeps saying those words, and other words, as she brings Helena even closer, and Helena feels Myka’s hands on her, in her, her mouth on her neck, her voice at her ear, saying “I love you,” over and over, and Helena gasps, “This was supposed to be—for you,” and Myka says, “It is, it is, it is,” and it is all Helena can do to stay in her body long enough to bring her own hands somewhere near where Myka might need them, but then Helena can’t think anymore, because she might as well be drowning: she is desperate for air, convulsing as if she does not remember how to breathe, still hearing “I love you” echo in her ears, but as if through a suffusing rush of water, a saturating fall of love.

****

In the morning, Myka is still exhausted and sore from the fire, but she is also deeply, profoundly happy. She had not known she could be this happy, yet every day with Helena has seemed just as good as, if not better than, the one before it, every night, even if spent merely sleeping, shows her that beside Helena is exactly where she is meant to be. Yesterday’s fire hadn’t been good, not at all, but if it had been the push they needed to say actual words of love to each other? To fully understand, truly appreciate what they mean to each other? Then it was positive, at least, in that one way, after all.

Helena is already up; Myka can hear her moving in the kitchen, probably feeding Dickens, because he, she, is nowhere to be found on the bed. And Myka feels that this is really all she wants: Helena, the woman she loves, the woman who loves her, in a space that’s theirs, surrounded by all the things—including Dickens!—that have meaning for the two of them. Yesterday has made that overwhelmingly clear to her.

She gets up, feeling her muscles warn her a bit. She walks carefully to the kitchen.

Helena is indeed there, but she isn’t doing anything. Dickens is eating, so that’s taken care of, at least, but Helena is just standing facing the sink, her hands gripping the edge of the counter. “Hey,” Myka says. She goes to her, tentatively puts a hand against her back, leans to kiss her. “Are you okay?”

Helena turns her head away. “Don’t,” she says. “Please, don’t.”

Myka is perplexed. “Why not?”

Helena moves away from her, leaves the kitchen entirely, goes almost to the front door, just about as far away from Myka as is possible for her to be. “I can’t do this,” she says.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

“What?” Myka says. She thinks, on some level, that she is just not hearing words correctly.

“I can’t do this,” Helena says again.

“Can’t do what?”

“This. Us.”

“You are not making sense. Of course you can; you do every day. I mean, we all have our off days, but honestly, you have a lot fewer than I do, because I know I could be better about a lot of things,” Myka knows she’s babbling, but maybe if she keeps talking this situation will somehow turn back into something she recognizes, or she’ll wake from whatever nightmare she’s in the middle of, “but sometimes I just genuinely don’t think about—”

“Stop,” Helena says, and Myka does. “I am making sense. More than that, I am telling the truth.”

“I don’t understand. The truth about what?”

“You could have died.”

“Yesterday? No, I told you, I was fine. I tripped, and Amanda pulled me out. It was fine! I mean, it was scary for a second, but just a second, and then it was fine. You saw me. It was fine!”

Helena snaps, really snaps, like she’s angry, “It was not fine. Wolly called me and told me to come to the emergency room. “

“But that was just… that was where they took me. I should never have let them—or I should have told him not to call you; I should have just come home.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Helena tells her. “I needed to be reminded of what that felt like. I had let myself forget. I had let myself be so happy with you, so overwhelmed by that, that I forgot.”

“Forgot? You mean… with Christina? It’s not the same, Helena, it’s not the same. I’m not Christina.” Myka doesn’t say Christina’s name; she knows better than that, usually. But this isn’t usual.

“Of course it’s not the same! Nothing is the same as that, nothing can ever be the same as that. But this would be equally as bad, and I cannot have that. No. I will not have it. I will not be surprised like that again.”

“But I can’t _help_ it. I can’t…”

“And that is why it’s over. It’s over now, because right now, I have a choice. I can choose not to be surprised by the end of this.”

“But what about me, what about how I’m being surprised by… the end of this? This is really the end of this?”

“I don’t want to feel like that again.”

“But what about how we felt last night? Do you not want to feel like that again either?”

Helena doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything, doesn’t nod, doesn’t shake her head, doesn’t betray any emotion at all. Nothing. It is worse than if she had turned her back on Myka. It is so much worse. It is like the neutrality of that day in the bookstore, this aspect that is not warm, not even cold… just nothing. But it is worse than that, of course, because now Myka has so much against which to measure this nothingness…. and all of that is gone. It’s just gone. And Myka would try to talk her out of this, would try to persuade her however she could, would kiss her and tell her she loves her and say anything at all to make her _see_ … but not faced with those eyes. Helena is not going to see anything with those eyes.

“Okay,” Myka says. “I’ll… I’ll go. Just… I have to get dressed.” She goes to the bedroom, finds clothes for herself, realizes that she’ll need to take her clothes home. She doesn’t have a lot of things here, but she needs to take them home. And her gear from last night. She can’t let herself think of last night, though. She pulls on jeans, a sweatshirt, sneakers. She finds her phone on the nightstand. She calls Amanda, says she needs a ride. Amanda starts to ask what’s wrong, then clearly thinks better of it; she says, “Okay. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Myka gathers up her remaining clothes, takes her toothbrush from the bathroom. She has to walk near Helena to get to the garbage bag that holds her smoky gear. She looks down. “It’s going to smell when I open it,” she says. “You might want to go somewhere else.” Myka hears her move away. She opens the bag and throws everything inside.

“If I forgot anything,” she says, still looking down at the bag, “you can mail it to me. Or throw it out. I don’t care.” She lifts the bag. It seems barely filled with air; she’d have thought that the three happiest months of her life would weigh more. “Amanda’s picking me up, so I should go downstairs.” She dares one look, up and back, to see if Helena is even going to watch her leave.

Helena is in the doorway of her bedroom. Dickens is by her feet, and Myka looks at him. Her. “I love you,” she says. “If you change your mind—if you _could_ —if you could, _please_ change your mind. Maybe after a while, if you wanted to call me, we could sit down and—” but she knows she’s just talking to fill the space now. As if her words could fill this space.

Because once again, Helena doesn’t say a word.

****

The minute Myka gets in the car, Amanda asks, “What’s wrong?”

“She… she said she can’t do this. She said it’s over.”

“What’s over?”

“Us. She said she can’t do this, because I might die.”

“I hate it when people use that as an excuse!” Amanda exclaims. “Everybody might die. I might die. Pete might die. _She_ might die. ”

“But not because of her job. And Pete stopped doing this job because he might die. Because his mom.”

“Pete’s mom might die too.”

“Less now that she’s Chief.”

Amanda ignores this. “So quit your job,” she says.

“What?”

“Quit your job. Problem solved.”

“But it’s my _job_.”

“So what? Get another job.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Pete wouldn’t ask me to.”

Myka hadn’t thought it was possible to feel sicker than she already did, but now: “She didn’t ask me to. And I didn’t volunteer. It didn’t even occur to me. So I guess that says all it needs to.”

“Stop being stupid. That doesn’t say anything at all, and I think you know that.”

But Myka doesn’t know any such thing.

****

Helena greets Caturanga as usual for chess on Monday evening.

“And how is Miss Bering?” he inquires.

“I presume she’s fine,” Helena says. She has already set up the board. She does not usually set up the board, but she had needed something to do in the morning. She had set up the Alice set at first, then changed her mind, put it away, and got out a traditional set. Then she changed her mind back. The Tenniel figures are now on the board.

“You presume,” he says.

“Yes,” she says.

“Very well.”

She plays extremely poorly.

Caturanga says, after her fourth loss, “You must tell me what is the matter. Or rather, if something is the matter.”

“Why?”

“Because I do not know if I should correct your errors or simply allow you to make them, out of compassion.”

Helena hardens her jaw. “Correct them,” she says.

****

Myka needs something to do. She had been spending so much time with Helena, spending so many of her thoughts on Helena, that she has to have something to fill that space.

So when Pete says to her, “I think there’s been another weird fire,” that’s all Myka needs to hear: she throws herself back into the investigation. She reads and rereads the information Pete gave her before, reads as much as he can get her about the new fire. She tries to find some kind of pattern in the buildings, their locations, something… but they seem as weird as the fires themselves. She maps them, in order, but gets nothing, or at least nothing that looks like a pattern. She looks at the structures. The first few, the first several, were all different kinds of buildings: a warehouse, an older house, a newer house, a storefront… and then they seem to alternate, almost by age, not really, but it’s the closest thing to a pattern she can find, but even then… it’s some older, some recently built—built during the downturn, in fact, when materials were cheap. So maybe they were just slapdash structures to begin with? But Myka looks up the builders—all reputable, all still working, no trouble on buildings they’d put up before then, no problems with recent work.

The only thing all the fires have in common is that they resulted in total losses. No rehabitation or reuse of the structure possible. Firefighters never reached scenes soon enough to save structures, despite the fact that all the official reports say no accelerants.

The one fire Pete worked, the first one, his report says “possible accelerant, but insured arson not likely.”

Myka calls to ask him about it. “Isn’t arson usually committed by the insured? Or someone hired by the insured?”

“Yeah,” Pete says, “but the guy who owned the place, that warehouse, he didn’t need any money. He had plenty. He didn’t even really care that he apparently had less insurance than he thought he did.”

“Less insurance than he thought he did?”

“Yeah, he just had ACV. Where you get what it’s worth, but minus depreciation. He didn’t have the fancy replacement cost rider, where the insurance ponies up the dough to rebuild the whole thing. But like I said, he was crazy rich—no reason for him to be involved.”

Myka thinks some more, reads some more. Wonders about insurance. Calls Pete back later that day, because she needs to think out loud. “It’s usually insurance fraud, right?”

“What?”

“Arson. It’s usually insurance fraud, right?”

“Yeah, usually. Or firebugs, but there really aren’t that many crazy people. And if it’s crazy people you usually can’t find ’em, because they don’t have real motives. They’re just random nuts.”

Myka does not think this is the work of a random nut. She thinks hard about insurance fraud, about who benefits. Who gets the money. The building owner gets the money. But all the building owners have been different. There’s no pattern there, either. She knows she’s missing something… it’s like some piece has fallen out of the puzzle box, and if she could just find that one piece…

She is trying as hard as she can to ignore the piece that is missing from her own life.

****

The next time Caturanga arrives at the bookstore for chess, he greets Helena; she greets him. He queries, “And how is Miss Bering?”

Helena says, “Don’t ask that anymore.”

“Very well,” he says.

Helena’s play has improved. She does not win, but she plays properly, not foolishly or inattentively.

As she is putting the pieces away at the end of the evening, he says, “Why not?”

She knows exactly what he means. “Because it is no longer relevant.”

“And why is it no longer relevant?”

“It is not your concern.”

“It is Miss Dickens’s concern,” he points out. The cat is in his lap; he is the only one who seems to like Dickens better now that he is a she, Helena reflects. He goes on, “You ignore this little one completely.”

“Not completely,” Helena says. “I feed him. Her. I take quite reasonable care of her.”

“She deserves far better than care that is simply reasonable.”

“Well, then, take her yourself,” Helena tells him.

“You accepted this responsibility, Helena. You brought this small personage into your home. You cannot simply thrust her aside because she reminds you of things of which you do not wish to be reminded.”

“I suppose that you think you know what you are talking about.”

“I suppose that I am talking about a cat. What do you suppose that I am talking about?”

****

Amanda has started to joke that Myka talks to Pete more than she does, and it might be true, because Myka keeps coming up with theories and asking Pete to check them out. Today, she is wondering who is working with MacPherson—if MacPherson is in fact the guilty party, but Myka thinks he is, and Pete still has his “vibe” about it, so Myka is inclined to believe both of their guts. MacPherson has been the one to sign off on all the questionable investigations, and Myka wonders if maybe anybody else has gotten disgruntled like Pete has.

So she calls Pete. “Has anyone been fired from your department lately? Or just… I don’t know, up and left for whatever reason?”

Pete considers. “Nobody since Sykes, but he left before this started happening. He and MacPherson hadn’t been getting along for a while, though, so I don’t think they’re in cahoots.”

“What did he quit to do?”

“Some kind of insurance thing. Claims adjuster, probably. Lots of guys do that, because they have all the investigative training. They can spot arson a mile away.”

“Pete,” Myka says, “I think you should find out what insurance company he works for.”

Pete calls her back almost instantly. “He’s an independent claims adjuster. He works for basically all the companies.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Myka asks.

“That I should call my good buddy Sykes to catch up, see what’s been happening?”

“It might not tell us anything. But Pete, too many people are getting hurt. We have to get a break somewhere.”

“Things are getting to a point,” Pete agrees. “Roger that.”

****

Two days later, Amanda arrives at the firehouse just before ten at night. She is shaking her head as she walks into the garage. Myka is already there, checking the gear on the truck to make sure Todd did his job, but Amanda grabs her arms, pulls her around, and says,  “You are not going to believe what just happened to me. I stopped some guy who I think was trying to set my house on fire.”

Myka drops the bag of tools she’s holding. The clatter is enormously loud. “Set your house on fire,” she repeats.

“He was around back, he was _clearly_ trying to break in, and he had something with him, something in one of those big thermoses. It smelled really strange.”

“Like gasoline strange? Like thinner, or some other—”

“If I thought it smelled like something normal, I would have said that. But this was just strange. Maybe a whiff like alcohol, but not really.” Then she laughs, but it’s a little off. “I got a good punch in, but he took off. Young guy. He could really run. I called the police and they said they’d put some extra patrols on, so it’s probably okay now, but _god_.”

“This can’t be some random idiot choosing your house. Not now. We have to talk to Pete.” When Pete answers his phone, Myka says, “I think somebody’s trying to get you to back off. I think they tried to get to Amanda.”

“Tried to… what? Is she okay? Put her on the phone!”

“She’s fine. I’ll put her on in a minute. What did Sykes say to you? Do you think he’s in on it? I mean, the timing, Pete, the timing! Did he work on the weird fires?”

“I couldn’t find out if he worked those fires. He said some things about how his job is to save the insurance companies money, pay out as little as possible. But he also said, sometimes you can’t do that. They don’t like it, the insurance companies, but sometimes you just have to pay.”

“This is getting too big, Pete. We have to get help. Can the Chief help? Who else can we trust?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says. “But put Amanda on the phone right now.”

Myka hands the phone over.

She hears Amanda say, “Will you calm down? I’m fine. It’s fine. I can take care of myself.” Then her voice softens, and Myka walks around to the other side of the truck. Sometimes you just have to pay. Was that a threat? It sounded like a threat. But was it also the truth? Sometimes the insurance companies did just have to pay. And sometimes they had to pay more than other times, like if they had what Pete called the fancy replacement cost rider.

An hour later, she is in the lounge, still trying to think her way through to some answers. Her phone rings with a number she doesn’t know, and she’s tempted to ignore it, but… she picks up. She hears, “You’re getting too close to something… to someone. And somebody is planning to do something about that, really really soon. It didn’t work with that woman earlier tonight, so you’re next. Hurry. You shouldn’t have to lose something you love. Okay?”

“Why are you telling me this?” Myka asks.

“A long time ago, you saved my mom from a fire. I’m sort of returning the favor.”

The phone goes dead.

“Amanda,” she says, because what she is thinking now, she is going to need someone to hold her up, and Amanda can do that, “they tried to get to Pete through you. They just said that I shouldn’t have to lose something I love.”

“What?”

“That call. Somebody was warning me that I’m going to lose something I love. They wanted to burn down your house… they want to burn something down, and I only love one thing. One person.” And Myka stands up on legs that really might not hold her, and she says, “Get the boys, get them on the truck, tell Leena that we have to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Not Helena,” Myka says. “Not the bookstore. I will not let that happen. I will not let that happen. Get the boys _now_. He said it was happening soon, that I had to hurry.”

“Roger,” Amanda says, and she takes off running.

As Myka swings onto the truck, seconds later, as they’re rolling out of the house, she is listening to her phone ring in her ear, praying that Helena will pick up, that it isn’t already too late. Or, god, that she isn’t lost in some restoration, ignoring everything around her, probably even the smell of smoke… Myka thinks the call’s going to go to voicemail, but then finally, right at the last second, she hears, “Myka?”

“Get out!” Myka shouts. “Grab Dickens and get out now! Do you smell smoke? Have they done anything?”

“What on earth are you talking about? Who are ‘they’? What smoke?”

“I got a call. They said I was going to lose something I love. You’re the only thing I love. Everyone knows that. Please, Helena, please, just get out. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

It takes a scant five minutes, Steve screeching around corners, for them to reach the bookstore. Helena is standing on the sidewalk, Dickens in one hand, a book in the other, looking both extremely rattled and extremely annoyed.

Myka leaps from the truck, directs the team to check out the building. “I’ll take the front, and upstairs,” she says. And then, to Helena, as she hurries past, she says, “We’ll make sure nothing’s happened yet, then we’ll call the police, set up patrols, like at Amanda’s. And I’ll leave you alone as soon as I can, I promise.”

****

Helena has no idea what to think, about anything at all. Here she is on the sidewalk, and Myka thinks the bookstore is going to be burned down?

Steve, who has stayed with the truck, waves to her from the cab. “Hi, H.G.,” he says, and she gestures back at him with the book, then walks over.

“Can _you_ tell me what’s happened?” she asks.

“I have no clue,” he says. “Myka just threw us all on the truck and said get over here as fast as possible.”

The radio crackles, and they both listen as a call for a fire comes in. Helena tilts her head. The address sounds very familiar… and then she remembers. She’s been there only once but—“That’s Myka’s house,” she tells Steve. “It’s Myka’s house. Whatever she thought was going to happen—it wasn’t here, Steve. It isn’t me at all.” She runs into the shop, but Myka must already be upstairs. Helena shouts to her, as she’s taking the stairs two at a time, “Steve got a call, it’s your house, Myka, it’s your house!” When she reaches the apartment, she deposits Dickens on the floor, flings the book aside.

Myka is emerging from Helena’s bedroom. “They like to set devices in closets. Arsonists. I swear I was in your bedroom only because of that. That’s all.”

“Are you listening to me? It’s not here. No one has set any device in my closet. It’s your house, Myka. It’s on fire.”

“My house?”

Helena thinks she looks like she’s stopped understanding English. “Yes,” she says. “Your house. Go get on the truck and go, all right? I’ll follow you.”

****

Helena stops her car as near the fire trucks as she can—there are several by the time she gets there, plus Ambulance 12. She sees Amanda and Myka next to their truck and runs to them immediately. Myka is leaning toward her house, but Amanda is pulling on her arm, saying, “Myka, we can’t go in. Look at it.” She’s right, Helena knows it. Flames have turned the roof to nothing, and while the engine is about to turn the hoses onto the walls, there’s very little structure left. “It’s a loss,” Amanda says.

“My house is a loss?” Myka’s voice is uncomprehending, as it was before, but her face now is anguished.

And Helena hears what she’s really saying: her books are a loss. “It’s going to be all right,” Helena tells her. “We’ll get you new books. I promise. I promise.”

“Fire hazards,” Myka says, quietly, dully. “I knew they were fire hazards.”

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

Helena sees that Wolly and Claudia are giving Myka speculative looks—they have the back of the ambulance open and seem poised to slide out a gurney. Or possibly poised to jump to catch Myka if she collapses, though Helena is briefly offended that Wolly, in particular, thinks that she herself could not deal with a falling, or even fallen, Myka.

But while Myka is shocked, Helena is fairly certain that she is not _in_ shock. Wolly, clearly in some disagreement with this idea, comes close to Helena and says softly, “Do you think… I mean, should we require her… medically, that is… to stand down?”

Helena says, as strongly as she can, “I think she needs to do her job. She needs to make sure the fire is out and will not threaten the other houses. Don’t you, Myka?”

And Myka seems to snap back to life. She doesn’t look at Helena, but she nods. She says to Amanda, “Come on.”

How long it will last, Helena doesn’t know, but it’s something.

The fire does not, in the end, threaten the other houses. When it is at last out, when the scene has become nothing more than a mass of damp smoke, when the trucks are being loaded to return to the firehouse, Myka seems to be in full control, acting as if this is any other scene. Helena watches her climb onto the truck without a backward glance.

Before Wolly gets in the ambulance, he asks Helena, “Are you all right?”

Helena nods, and Wolly nods back. He and Claudia drive away first.

But Helena is not all right, because she does not know what to do. It is Amanda who once again gives the sign: before she gets on the truck, she asks Helena, almost diffidently, “Are you going home now?”

Helena doesn’t see how she can possibly go home. Going home would mean not knowing where Myka is; she is horrified by the idea of letting Myka out of her sight. She wants Myka in front of her eyes—she can barely keep from leaping onto the truck herself to make sure she is still there. Helena is aggressively not thinking about what that means.

And yet she does not actually have to think about it at all: she knows very well what it means.

Amanda, having not received an answer to her first question, is not diffident at all as she asks another: “Or will you follow us back to the house?”

“I’ll follow,” Helena says.

****

Helena arrives at the firehouse to find a vigorous argument underway regarding with whom, exactly, Myka will be staying. Myka is not even present.

“She’s showering,” Amanda says to Helena’s murmured inquiry, and then, to the rest of them, “and when she’s through with that, she is obviously coming to my place.”

Steve counters with, “You said somebody tried to torch your place! My place is way safer.”

Liam snorts. “Your neighborhood? And the security at your building? Please. Mine is much better, not to mention a lot cleaner.”

Steve shakes his head at that, but Helena can’t tell if he’s denying “cleaner,” “better,” or both.

“I live with my parents,” Todd says. “The house is huge, and it’s got a security system.”

Artie, who has joined the discussion, says, “I think my house is the safest of all: a doctor lives there. So if Myka turns out to be hurt, I’ve got a physician on hand.”

Helena sees that Wolly and Claudia are staying out of it; she quietly asks Wolly, “Did Myka say anything? Once you were all here?”

Wolly shrugs. “Not really. She said she wanted to shower, and that was all.”

Claudia says, “Actually, H.G., she asked where you were. Amanda said you were right behind us, and _then_ she said she wanted to shower.”

“You’re right,” Wolly confirms. “I should have remembered that. H.G., I’m so sorry.”

“Everybody’s frazzled,” Claudia says. She pats his arm.

“Indeed,” Helena says, though she does not know what she is; “frazzled” does not begin to address anything she is feeling. She tries not to focus on the corridor from which Myka will emerge, when she does. She says, because she feels she needs to talk, “I appreciated your attentiveness. To her, at the scene. She might very well have needed help.”

“I thought she wouldn’t,” Claudia says, “because she’s the lieutenant, and she’s… the way she is. But Wolly said you never know.”

“You never do know,” Helena affirms. “People in extremis are likely to do, and say, all kinds of things that are terribly out of character. Or perhaps in character, but thoughtless—that is, the product of an inability to think. Aren’t they, Wolly?”

“They are,” he affirms in return. “One hopes that they will eventually return to themselves, however. And to thinking.”

“One does.”

Claudia says, “I’m feeling sort of excluded right now.” Wolly turns to look at her, and Claudia laughs. “Not the puppy eyes. Please. You win: it’s fine. Exclude me.”

“It’s not fine,” Helena says. She doesn’t really know the dynamic between Wolly and Claudia, but they are partners now. Helena and Wolly may be groping their way back to something like friendship, but they will never again be the exclusive club they once were. She regards Claudia. “He does,” she tries, “deploy those eyes habitually, does he not?”

“He _so_ does,” Claudia agrees.

“They are simply my _eyes_ ,” Wolly protests.

Helena tells Claudia, “I once suggested sunglasses, to prevent undue influence.”

“I love it,” Claudia pronounces. “Wolly, we are buying you some Ray-Bans in the morning.”

Now Wolly turns his gaze to Helena, and she has not seen this particular expression from him in a very long time: wounded, but comically so.

Claudia snickers. “Better you than me, H.G.” And at that, Wolly swivels his head back to her, making her laugh even harder, and he starts laughing too.

Helena feels a small jab of nostalgia—and, she thinks, that is all right.

Then she feels that something in the room has changed; she realizes that the argument has ceased, and that is because Myka is standing in the doorway to the lounge, leaning against the frame, eyes almost closed.

Arriving at the wedding, on the bed in the emergency room, even standing stunned in Helena’s own apartment, Myka has never seemed so beaten. Helena does not know how the argument among the firefighters turned out. She does not care. She goes to Myka, touches her arm, and says, “Let’s go.”

Myka opens her eyes and nods. She lets Helena take her hand and lead her out.

****

When they reach the apartment, Myka says, immediately, “I need to sit down.” She crumples onto the sofa, and Dickens jumps immediately to sit next to her. “Mrs. Jellyby,” she says faintly; then, “I can’t do it right now. You’re just Dickens.” The cat has no problem with that, apparently, for she pushes herself under one of Myka’s hands, which are limp at her sides, and curls up. Myka closes her eyes.

Helena does not know what to think of, or how to respond to, this tableau, so she goes to prepare for bed.

When she emerges from the bedroom, pajama-clad, steeling herself to determine what exactly is going to happen next, she is relieved of the need to do any such determining: Myka is stretched out on the sofa, and Dickens is lying across her stomach and chest, purring contentedly at first, then quiet.

Helena thinks that the best she can do for now is to thank god that Myka is alive, and that her own eyes are beholding her, still. So she does that. She tries not to think beyond the thanks that she gives, tries not to think, even, of what the morning might bring, whether in terms of thoughts, or words, or actions, from either of them. She looks again at the two beings sleeping in her home.

She watches Myka’s chest rise and fall, raising Dickens’s body a bit with each inhalation, lowering her with each exhale.

Then she seats herself in the armchair across from them. Eventually, her eyelids escape her control, and she sleeps.

****

Myka wakes with the dawn. She instantly remembers what’s happened, but it takes her a moment to understand where she is, and that yes, that is Helena asleep in the armchair, her head tilted back, mouth slightly open. Dickens is in her lap, curled as tightly as Dickens can curl. She can still be very tiny when she wants to be, Myka thinks, even though she’s once again grown, changed, since Myka last saw her. 

Has Helena changed? Myka did not have time to, and then was unable to, really look at Helena last night. Not being able to simply look at her has been a loss, an absence that Myka has felt acutely for these weeks they have been apart. She has looked at so many other things to try to distract herself from that absence. Myka finds it very cruel of fate that last night, when she could finally have been looking at Helena again, all she could see were flames.

She’d expected not to sleep, expected to close her eyes and keep on seeing flames, but instead she slept heavily; it was almost like she was drugged. There’s a part of her that would not put it past anyone at that firehouse to have in actual fact drugged her, not if they thought it would genuinely help her. They are all so fierce, and crazy, and committed… 13 is _not_ like other firehouses. Or maybe it is simply that these people, together in this configuration, are completely unlike any other group she’s been a part of.

And Helena is completely unlike any other person Myka’s been a part of. Because she _is_ a part of Helena now, and Helena is a part of her; that is simply the arrangement, the composition, of Myka’s world. And if Helena wants to, needs to, deny that—if it isn’t even true for Helena—then that is just something Myka will continue to deal with. She can’t make Helena understand things the same way she herself does. She can’t tell Helena what she should feel, or what she should want to feel. All Myka can do is love her and wait.

All she can do now, actually, is love her and wait for her to wake up. Helena’s breathing has taken on the tiny, barely audible snuffle that indicates she might be sleeping less deeply, and Myka would not be surprised to see her eyes open in not too long. When they do, things will start to happen; Myka will probably have to leave, because Helena will remember exactly why she cannot do this: because of fire and what it can do. And Myka herself will have to think about what it has done, and what that will mean. But right now, in this moment, Myka feels safe; the events of yesterday have barely happened, and Myka is remembering that she knows how Helena breathes when she sleeps.

And now she is remembering that she knows what Helena looks like right when she opens her eyes. They are dark with sleep and brightly awake at once, those eyes—still languid, but already alert. Myka looks at those eyes and wants to say every word of love that it is possible to say. She settles, instead, for a slightly hoarse “Hi.”

“Hi,” Helena says back. “How are you?”

“I have no idea,” Myka says. “How are you?”

“The same. But differently.” Helena moves a little, as if about to stretch; then she sees, or feels, that Dickens is in her lap. She stills, but it’s too late: Dickens looks up, piqued, and yowls. Then she jumps down and proceeds to stalk her elf.

If this were a normal day, Myka would get down on the floor and make the elf into more interesting—that is, moving—prey. But Myka really cannot imagine a day that would be less normal than this one. Except possibly yesterday, but she still thinks that today is going to beat it by a mile. “This is going to be a day of dealing with things,” Myka says.

“The fire, obviously.” Now Helena does stretch. She stretches, stands up, and comes to sit beside Myka on the sofa.

Myka is not sure how she feels about this, so she tries to talk as if Helena is still across the room. “The fire, right, but also what it means for Pete’s investigation. I told you last night—well, I said words to you and that’s what they were about. I was tipped off about it.”

“You did tell me last night. You said they said you were going to lose something you love. And you thought of me.” Helena says this cautiously.

Myka doesn’t see any reason to dissemble on the point. “Of course I thought of you. I told you: you’re the only thing I love.”

“That’s not true. You do love your books,” Helena says.

Myka shakes her head. “You weren’t wrong about what you said. I can get new books.” Then her gut starts to churn. “Except the Forster. It was there, it was in my bedroom, upstairs. None of the second floor was left, was it?”

“Just because that Forster’s gone… Myka, it doesn’t matter. We’ll start with the first volume this time.”

“I liked the second one.”

“We’ll find that too. And the third, and then we’ll move on to… I’ll get you first editions of everything. All the Dickens I can lay my hands on. I will. And if we can’t find volumes that are perfect, I’ll make them perfect. Or I’ll make Caturanga make them perfect; I told you, he’s far more skilled than I am. You will have the most beautiful library ever assembled, I swear it.” She is so animated that Myka almost expects her to leap up and start conjuring books out of thin air. She could do it, too, she would work some alchemy on a stack of paper and a bottle of glue, and there would be a first edition of _Bleak House_.

Helena is up on her knees on the sofa now, leaning towards Myka, and Myka finds that she can’t ignore Helena’s physical presence anymore. Either she is going to have to touch her or she is going to have to get her to back down. She tries for the latter with an almost dismissive, “So anyway, like I said, this is going to be a day of dealing with things.”

This does bring Helena out of the clouds a bit. She sinks down so that her legs are folded under her. But she asks, “Will you come back here at the end of it?”

“Do you want me to?”

Helena smiles a very gentle smile. “I want to be the one to give you a place to stay.”

Myka feels a twist in her heart; she wants nothing more than to be here, but there is a large part of her that is very afraid that she will start hoping again. “I don’t want you to feel… obligated to do anything, just because my house… burned. Because it burned. Don’t feel obligated, and don’t feel sorry for me. Books need to have nothing to do with this. That isn’t what I want from you.”

“That isn’t what you’re getting from me.” Helena says this with a small, serious head-shake.

“Then what am I getting? Because I don’t know. Right now, I don’t know… books and the couch? I should be on Amanda’s couch, then.”

“You could be on anyone’s couch, or in their guest room. They were all fighting about who would take care of you.”

At this, Myka laughs, because she can just picture it. “And you won?”

“I didn’t participate.” There’s that head-shake again. “In the end, I am the one who _will_ take care of you.”

“You’ll understand why I don’t find that statement really comforting. Or reassuring. Or—” But Myka can’t speak anymore, because Helena is kissing her, and it feels like they’re out of practice, rusty, but it also feels like they never stopped. But—“Wait,” Myka says, pulling back. “Wait. I said, don’t feel obligated. I mean it. You feel sorry for me. You think I’m damaged. And I am, but if you think you’re going to… I don’t know, _heal me_ or something, and that’s it? That is not what I want. I would take it, probably, so I would rather you didn’t even offer. Please.”

“That is not what I’m offering. I don’t know what I’m offering, not really, but it is not that.”

“My house burned down. That’s not a good reason for me to be here again.”

“Your house burned down. That is not the reason you are here again.”

“Then what’s the reason?”

“I think we should talk about that. I think you should come back here at the end of this day of dealing with things, and I think we should talk about that.”

“Would we be talking if my house hadn’t burned down?”

“How can I answer that? Probably not, but would we be talking if you hadn’t rescued a cat from a tree?”

Myka looks over at Dickens, who is now happily curled around the elf. Helena is right; the world is random. Myka wants it not to be random. She wants it all to make sense, for effects to have causes—and more than that, for them to have the _right_ causes. She’s not ready to give that idea up entirely… but maybe she can loosen her grip. She leans to Helena and kisses her cheek. “You win,” she says, and she is not sure if she’s saying it happily or regretfully.

Helena runs a hand through Myka’s hair. She gives the curl she catches at the end a soft tug. “I don’t need to win. I just don’t want to lose.”

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

The morning after the fire, Myka is at the firehouse, dealing with things. She wants to call Pete, but that feels dangerous; she wants to talk to the Chief, but she isn’t in her office, and no one seems to know where she’s gone. So instead, she calls her insurance company, like a normal person would. After several calls back and forth, the reasonably nice woman who’s been assigned to her case informs her that she needs to meet an insurance adjustor in the afternoon, at the place where her house used to be.

She doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t want to see the place where her house used to be, not ever again.

“Do you want company?” Amanda asks. “I’ll get somebody to cover for me. Or I’ll find Pete and make him go with you.”

Myka says, “I think it’s probably best if Pete stays as far away from me as possible, where this fire’s concerned.”

Amanda agrees with that. “But you and Pete have to talk,” she says. “I don’t know as much as you two do; I really can’t be your go-between.”

“I know. Ask him if he can meet me here, or anywhere, after I get done with this, okay?”

One more thing to deal with.

****

A blond man with a clipboard and a tablet is on the sidewalk in front of the ash and blackened beams that used to be Myka’s house. He approaches Myka with an outstretched hand. “Hi,” he says. “Walter Sykes.”

Myka hears the name and thinks that she should be scared, probably. That is probably the idea, anyway, that she will feel a chill and know that she is being told as loudly and strongly as possible that she is to back off. But she isn’t scared, not really… her house is gone, she doesn’t know where things stand with Helena, and she’s exhausted. He can have it, his fraud or arson or whatever it is, if he would just leave her alone. She is tempted to say to him, too, just as she did to Helena this morning, “You win.”

Instead, she says “Myka Bering” and shakes his hand.

He asks questions about the property; she answers them. No, she wasn’t home; no, she isn’t having financial difficulties; no, she didn’t leave the stove on. He looks around; she follows after him, trying not to see any of it, trying, as well, not to hear his comments, which are easily interpreted as menacing. Innocent too, of course, because as far as anyone knows, he had nothing to do with this. But Myka feels it. Just like she felt with MacPherson at the apartment building.

When the tour is over, he hands her his card, says she should call if she needs to, but that he doesn’t see any problems with the claim. “Total loss,” he says. “Seeing that more and more these days.”  He turns to go, then turns back. “Say hi to your friend Pete if you see him. Tell him it was _great_ to catch up.”

Myka doesn’t say anything, and he walks away, just like a normal person would.

****

When Myka gets back to the firehouse, everyone is out on a call. She finds Artie and Leena in the lounge. Artie has the PUC-Aerial manual open in front of him, and Leena is sitting with Trailer on the sofa.

Leena sees Myka first. “Amanda said to tell you Pete says to sit tight, that he can’t see you till tomorrow. But more importantly, how are you?” she asks. “Or better: how are you still standing?”

“I made cookies; eat some cookies,” Artie says.

Myka pulls out a chair and sits. “I’m not still standing.”

“Funny,” Leena says. “What about the cookies?”

“The thought of food isn’t really working for me right now.”

Artie scrutinizes her. “You look terrible. Do you feel terrible?”

“I don’t feel much of anything,” Myka says. “Tired, mostly. I feel tired.”

Leena says, “Amanda said you were at your house.”

“I don’t have a house anymore. I guess I’ll have a large check instead.”

“You know,” Artie says, “property insurance exists in the first place because of fire.”

“Oh, don’t,” Leena groans. Trailer yips in agreement.

Artie gives them both a pointed glance. “The Great Fire of London, in 1666. After that, people realized they needed some way of getting capital—not a loan—after a loss. So, property insurance.”

“I didn’t know that,” Myka admits.

“And, obviously, arson became a lot more profitable at that point. You should really eat a cookie.”

“I don’t want a cookie, Artie.” Then she thinks. “But I do want one thing.”

“What? How about a sandwich? I can make you a sandwich.”

“No, not a sandwich. I want to ask you: what did you and MacPherson fight about?”

“Oh,” Artie says. “Really?”

Leena says, “They fought about fire.”

Myka has no idea what that means, and says so.

“He was always a _believer_ in fire,” Artie says.

Myka doesn’t know what that means, either.

Artie says, “Fire’s funny. It brings out the philosophers. There’s the heat, and the smoke, and the burning, and it’s hell. It’s the devil. You know that. But to some people it’s heaven—it’s bright. It’s godly. It’s pure; it purifies. It clears its own path.”

“Both those things are true,” Myka says.

“And we would argue about which side… prevails. We—well, you now, not me—have to run toward fire when nobody else will. James said you can’t run toward something unless you can love it as much as, or more than, you hate it.”

“And what did you say?”

Artie doesn’t answer, so Leena does. “He said a lot of different things, depending on the day. Up until the day he got burned.”

Artie breathes out. “Yeah. You can see all kinds of things, and you can still be philosophical, because it’s them, and it isn’t you. But not after you burn. I burned. James didn’t. And after that… that’s what we fought about.”

“So you think he looks at fire and sees…. what?”

“Power,” Artie says immediately.

“And he was always the kind of person,” Leena adds, “who thought power should be used.”

A particular flash of memory comes to Myka, as it sometimes does: she is five years old, she is turning a matchbook in her hands, and she cannot figure out where the fire is supposed to come from.

****

Helena tries all day to pretend that it is a normal day, that she is just a normal person, having a normal day. The bookstore is not overly busy, though, so there is very little to distract her from her thoughts. Some children ask to pet Dickens, and that takes a welcome bit of time and attention. She’s found that the fact that “Charles Dickens” is the name of a female cat is actually a very good conversation starter with children of a certain age.

She is about to hang the “closed” sign on the door when Myka trudges in. And she almost literally trudges; she seems barely able to lift her feet to move them.

“I know we were supposed to talk,” Myka says. “I don’t think I can do that tonight. There’s too much I don’t know; nothing makes sense. So if you want me to go to a hotel now, instead of staying here, I will. Or I’ll pitch a tent in the alley. Right now I don’t care. Just point me in a direction. It doesn’t matter. I’ll be better tomorrow, I promise. Or maybe I won’t, but at least it’ll be tomorrow and not today.”

Helena says, “I threw too much at you this morning. We’ll do whatever you want. But I might draw the line at pitching a tent.”

Myka doesn’t really react. She just stands there, by the checkout counter, and she seems, actually, closer to shock now than she had last night, at the scene. Helena almost expects her to begin to shake, expects her teeth to start chattering.

Helena thinks a direct question will be best. “Have you eaten anything?” she tries.

It works. Myka says, “I have no idea. Probably not. Artie kept trying to give me cookies.”

“You should be glad Vanessa wasn’t there; she would have given you IV fluids.”

At this, Myka manages something like a laugh.

“Come on,” Helena says. “You bring Dickens upstairs, and I’ll start dinner.”

****

Helena knows that if someone had told her, two days ago, that she would feed Myka scrambled eggs for dinner, that after dinner Myka would be dozing on her sofa with Dickens in her lap, that Helena herself would be washing dishes while glancing at Myka dozing on the sofa to reassure herself that Myka was still there and still all right… well, if someone had told her these things, that someone would most likely have been Caturanga, and he would have been right. Helena does not know whether she would have been inclined to curse him or kiss him.

But she does know that she is happy that Myka is here. Just in this moment, she is happy. The circumstances around this moment are awful—Myka’s house, of course, but over the eggs Myka told her more about why the fire seems to have been set, and Helena understands a bit more clearly why Myka thought that Helena herself would be targeted. It is not awful, though, to go and sit beside Myka, to scratch Dickens’s head, to lay her own head against a cushion and feel happy that they are sitting quietly together.

Myka keeps her eyes closed as she says, “I think I might need a blanket. Out here. Tonight. It’s not cold, but it’s not hot either.”

“All right,” Helena says. “I’ll probably need one too.”

Myka cracks one eye open. “I’m pretty sure you still have blankets on the bed, don’t you?”

“If you’re out here, I won’t be in bed. I’ll be in the chair, like I was last night.”

“Why?” Now both her eyes are open.

“Because…” Helena can’t think of a plausible excuse, so she goes with the real reason. “Because I don’t want you out of my sight. What if something happens to you?”

“If you go to sleep, I’m out of your sight,” Myka points out, quite reasonably. “Plus I was out of your sight all day long.”

“I didn’t say it was rational.”

“It’s pretty irrational to sleep in an armchair when you’ve got a perfectly good bed one room away, too.”

“I didn’t say it was _irrational_.” Helena isn’t piqued; she’s just pointing it out, also quite reasonably, she thinks.

Myka shakes her head. “It’s got to be one or the other.”

“Not if it’s a number. It could be imaginary, or if you prefer, complex.”

Now Myka sighs. “It’s not a number.”

“I think the description holds, even if it isn’t a number. How can you judge the rationality or irrationality of something imaginary?”

Now a smile. “Or, if I prefer, complex?”

“Or, if you prefer, complex,” Helena affirms.

Myka turns her head toward Helena. “This whole situation is pretty complex.”

“I know.”

And as she did that morning, Helena just decides. She leans over and kisses Myka. It’s an impulse but not just an impulse; it’s a response to the tone in Myka’s voice, she thinks, a conditioned response, because this is how Myka sounds when she and Helena are together. This is how she is supposed to sound.

It’s like the morning, but it isn’t: Myka doesn’t pull back this time, doesn’t say “wait” or “stop” or anything like that. It is the kind of kiss that they once knew how to fall into so easily, one that might go on and on like this, or come to a natural end, or develop into something more, or anything at all.

By the time it does end, Dickens has been removed from Myka’s lap by Helena. She is sitting atop Myka’s legs and looking down at her; Myka has her hands at Helena’s hips and is looking very seriously up. “Things may start happening tomorrow,” Myka says.

“We will deal with them,” Helena tells her.

“Are we back together?”

“We still have things to talk about.”

Myka touches her teeth to her bottom lip, then says, “Let me ask you a different question: Do you want to be back together?”

And Helena kisses that bottom lip. “Let me answer a different question. I don’t want to be apart.”

“So you seem to be saying that tonight is…”

“Complex,” Helena says.

“Or imaginary?” And Myka does not sound as if she feels that description is positive.

Helena agrees. “I’d rather it were complex.”

“That still doesn’t make it real.” But she adds, “See, I know a little math.”

“It doesn’t make it real,” Helena concedes. “But you seem to be suggesting that tomorrow will be real enough.”

“I don’t know what Pete’s going to tell me. I don’t know what we’re going to have to do.”

“And I don’t know what _we’re_ going to have to do. So tonight let’s just… even if we just sleep, Myka, and that’s fine, because I know you’re tired, let’s do that in bed, as we would, as we ought to. Let’s just not be apart.”

Myka pulls Helena down now into a very different kind of kiss, one that seems to be looking for answers that Helena can’t quite yet figure out how to give. When this one stops, Myka says, “Okay. You’re right. I am tired. I’m tired, but you’re right. Let’s not be apart.”

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

In the morning, Helena awakens and knows, in that instant, for that one instant, that everything is right, everything is familiar: she can feel Myka’s arm draped across her waist, heavy with sleep, and Myka’s forehead wedged against the back of her neck. After that one instant, however, she begins to think. First, she supposes that it is probably for the best that nothing other than sleep happened last night. Myka needed to rest, and anyway it will most likely make this morning a bit less confusing, a bit less awkward. Next, she wonders what will happen over the course of the day, whether Myka will be able to discover anything about the fire at her house, about all these fires that she and Pete consider, in her word, “weird.” And finally, Helena tries to figure out exactly what she will say to Myka about their relationship, whether they are back together, whether they can be back together, whether she herself is yet able to accept the idea that… that…

“I keep telling you not to think so hard,” Myka says in her ear, and if Helena were not in bed, she would jump a foot in the air. As it is, she twitches violently, and Myka tightens the clasp of her arm. She says, “Sorry. Thought you’d realized I woke up.”

“Not really,” Helena says to the air in front of her.

“I got that. The way you threw that elbow, I’m surprised I don’t have a cracked rib. You should try out for the NBA. Or maybe take up cage fighting.” It isn’t Myka’s forehead against Helena’s neck now, but her lips, and her hand is moving up and down Helena’s thigh, and this is feeling _very_ familiar. It isn’t feeling confusing or awkward or anything of the sort, though Helena hazily recalls that for some reason she’d been concerned about that…

“Sorry,” Myka says, and stops.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because it isn’t last night anymore. Still complex, though, and I think we’ll both feel better once we’ve, I don’t know, reduced the number of variables? I’m sure there are good math words, but I’m still kind of sleepy. Anyway, I think we’ll both feel better.”

“You feel very good right now.”

“So do you.”

“But you’re probably right,” Helena says with regret.

“That’s disappointing.”

“You _love_ being right.”

“Not this time. This time, you were supposed to say, ‘no, we won’t feel better at all; carpe diem, honey,’ or something like that.”

“‘Carpe diem, honey’? That sounds much more like something Amanda would say.”

Now Helena can feel Myka’s chuckle shake her body and the bed. “Very true. But I’m pretty sure the only Latin she knows is ‘semper fi.’”

“All right, then, ‘semper fi, honey,’” Helena laughs.

Myka sounds both completely light and completely serious as she says, “I may be jumping ahead here, but I hope you mean that.”

Helena pulls Myka’s arm back around her and holds it tight.

****

Myka meets Pete in a diner that’s about as far from the firehouse, and from his office, as they can get without leaving the city.

“What in the world are you eating?” she asks as she sits down across from him. She’s pretty sure she’s never seen such an enormous plate.

“Uh…” and his mouth is half full, “haff bown, egg, hancake,” he swallows, “mwaffles coming later, and I ate the bacon already, so you’ll have to order your own.”

“That’s okay,” she says. “Helena made me breakfast.”

“Amanda made me breakfast too. What’s your point?”

“Okay.”

“Actually, I’m kidding. You know Amanda hates cooking. We had cereal.” Then he gets serious. “So look, your house. I’ll do some major ‘I’m so sorry’ about it later, but for right now let’s do information: it was a superfast burn, based on when the call came in, to when it was gone.”

“I wonder if we’d have been in time to stop it if we hadn’t gone to Helena’s first.”

“Tell me why, exactly, you went there.” He really is all business now.

“Because of the tip. Didn’t Amanda tell you?”

“She said you got a call, something you love would burn? What exactly did they say? It was a guy, right?”

“Right,” Myka says. “He said that it hadn’t worked with Amanda, that they were going to burn something, that I shouldn’t have to lose something I love. I thought he meant Helena.”

“I get it. I’d’ve thought they meant Amanda. Or my mom.”

“I saved his mom.”

“What?”

“He said I saved his mom from a fire, and that was why he was warning me. That he was sort of returning the favor.”

“Okay. Then I guess we need to find out who you’ve saved.”

“Just women? Starting with the most recent, there’s Paula Clarendon, Jun Wang, Teresa Albin, Maxene Andrews—not actually one of the Andrews Sisters, she told me about sixty times, just named after her—Tina, whose last name I never knew, Anne Lucas, Martina Schuster, Jessica Rodriguez, Monica—didn’t get her last name either—Lily Jones, who wanted to know if we could pretend she’d died in the fire so she could run away to Mexico, Terry Powell, Mrs. Paul Telfair, and she was very particular about that, even when I had her over my shoulder, and of course the first one, when I was a probie: Betty Struhl.”

“My god, you _are_ a hero. And man, how can you just reel that off?”

“Eidetic memory.”

Pete twists his face. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Let’s just go with, my memory’s really good.”

“Okay. So now I guess we have to check all of them out, see if they have kids?”

But Myka has begun to hear that rattling again, feeling a piece somewhere, if she can just grab it and bring it into the picture… “Wait. Wait. Something on a list. That’s it, that’s it, that’s it! I was paying attention to casualties, Pete, not survivors. Not the whole list—I know this, I know it, I can _see_ it—the list—” and there is it, she sees the list, the residents of the apartment building, and _there it is_ , apartment 520: Tyler Struhl. “It’s not a coincidence,” she says.

“I am going to believe all the words you say for as long as I live,” Pete tells her, “but you have to explain them to me. What’s not a coincidence?”

So she says it out loud: “A person named Tyler Struhl lived in apartment 520 of the building that burned down the day of the wedding.”

Pete looks him up immediately on his phone. “He’s a grad student at the university.” He stares at Myka. “I think you did it, you freak. I think this is our break.”

“How? What is it?”

“He’s a grad student in _chemistry_.”

****

They take Myka’s car so Pete can make calls on the way.

“He’s got lab space,” Pete reports, “with some prof named Critchlow and another guy. Apparently he’s been spending a lot of time there now that his apartment’s gone. The prof says we’ll probably find him there… and do you know what he’s working on, Myka?”

“I bet I can guess.”

“Well, you can guess, but you’ll probably get it totally wrong. It’s fire suppression chemicals. But I don’t think either of us is gonna be surprised if he knows a whole bunch about stuff that does the opposite.”

****

Tyler’s labmate is absorbed in his own work, but Myka and Pete both flash their badges at him. He says, “Yeah, Tyler’s a weirdo. All he cares about is fire. Stopping it, that is. I guess his mom was in some fire, so fire equals really bad mojo.”

“Is he working on anything else?” Myka asks.

“He’s had this one thing he’s been hinky about for, like, at least a year. Won’t let anybody see, not even Critchlow, and it’s his lab.”

Pete says, “So sooner or later that’s going to be a problem.”

“Maybe sooner,” the young man says. “He got a phone call and then ran out of here this morning like an even crazier person than he already is, hauling some chem out, all ‘that’s it!’ and ‘it’s over!’”

“Really,” Pete says. He gives Myka an eyebrow-raise.

Myka asks, “Have you ever heard him mention the name Walter Sykes? Or James MacPherson?”

“MacPherson, yeah! That’s who he was yelling about this morning! ‘It’s over, MacPherson!’ He said that, like he was going after the guy, whoever he is. I wouldn’t want to be him, I can tell you that. Tyler’s a total nut.”

****

Back in the car, Myka says, “All right. How do we find MacPherson? I’m betting he’s not just hanging out in his office today.”

Pete smiles what might be the biggest smile she’s ever seen from him. “How much do you love me right now?” he asks.

Myka looks at him sideways. “I will assess the situation and get back to you with my answer.”

“That’s fair. But here’s the thing: I have a card up my sleeve.”

“If it is a two of clubs, I had better be sitting on nineteen.”

“Also fair. I have no idea what card it is, but her name is Kelly. She’s a cop, and I used to date her, but, you know, it’s obviously always been Amanda. In fact Kelly’s the one who said, obviously you are in love with that Marine firefighter woman, and I said Amanda? and she said I’m pretty sure you don’t know a lot of _other_ Marine firefighter women, and I had to say that that was true. So—”

“Pete.”

“Yeah, so, guess what Kelly’s doing.”

“Pete…”

“Okay, okay. She’s following MacPherson. Has been since your house burned down—well, I spelled her for a little while, but only so she could get some shut-eye. That’s why I couldn’t see you yesterday. And so now I am going to call her, and we are going to find out exactly where he is, and I am willing to bet, even if we are just sitting on that two of clubs, that that’s how we’ll find Tyler, too.”

Myka’s mouth is now hanging open. She closes it enough to say, “You… are kind of a genius yourself.”

“I know, right? A kind different from you, though.” He waves his phone around like a magician, finally raising it to his ear, saying, “Hey, Kelly. What’s up with the pigeon?… Naw, bored out of your mind is good, we don’t want excitement… So where is he?”

Myka is still looking at Pete. She’s formulating a very different idea of him—she’s been doing that over the course of this whole “weird fire” situation. He’d been the Chief’s son, he’d been Amanda’s sometimes-annoying jarhead friend… but this guy who was bugged by weird fires? This guy who’s been listening to her theories? This guy sitting in the car with her today? This is a different guy. She actually likes this guy, likes how it is to work with this guy. She wonders if he would ever be willing to get back on a truck.

Then she hears him say, “What bookstore?”

And before he can utter another word, she has the car started and is flooring the gas pedal, and she is shouting at him, “Get Helena on the phone!”

Pete says, “Watch it, Kelly, and if you see some guy who looks like he’s got… probably a big thermos? Take him down, quick.” He listens, and Myka starts digging in her pocket for her own phone. “Okay. We’re gonna need all kinds of backup—call your guys, but first, call Firehouse 13, get trucks over there.”

“Is it on fire? Tell me,” Myka begs him.

“It’s not on fire,” Pete says, “not yet. Gimme your phone. I don’t know the bookstore’s number.”

“I do,” Myka says. “The landline is 555-2619.”

“You and your memory,” he says, and starts punching it in.

“Well, I did just have to give it to your friend Sykes as… my… oh god.” Nausea hits Myka, and she thinks, incongruously, that if she can feel this sick this fast she should stop the car—but nothing can make her stop the car. “This is my fault. This is all my fault. I gave the number, the landline, to Sykes, because he said my cell wasn’t enough, that they needed the number of where I was staying… my god, I didn’t think. That’s why he’s _there_ , Pete, that’s why he’s _there_.”

“Okay. That’s why Tyler’s there too. Kelly saw him, or saw a guy with a thermos, go into the bookstore too, pretty soon after MacPherson did, and they haven’t come out. But it isn’t on fire, and we don’t know what Tyler’s really planning. She’s gonna get the trucks over, right now. We’ll stop it, Myka. We will, okay?”

“It’s not okay. The entire thing is my fault. Every single bit of it is my fault. If we had never got Dickens out of that tree that day, Helena wouldn’t be involved at all.” Myka hits a straightaway, picks up speed. “If anything happens to her, Pete, I swear to god, I will kill MacPherson, and I will kill Tyler, and I will go and find Sykes and I will kill him too.”

“You _should not_ tell an officer of the law those things,” Pete says. “Even though I’ll help you do it, anyway. Because fire.”

“Fire,” Myka affirms. She drives faster.

****

They reach the bookstore before any trucks, before any police; Pete sees Kelly pressed against the building, next to the window, and he and Myka run to her, both demanding “what’s happening?”

“Lots of argument between the kid and MacPherson,” she says quietly. “I can’t hear every word they’re saying, but it’s pretty awful. I guess a lot of people are dead because of both of them?”

Myka dares a look through the window. She sees Helena behind the register, sees MacPherson standing in front of her. They are both looking at a younger man, it must be Tyler, who is blocking the doorway. He has a thermos in one hand. He has a lighter in the other. “I am going to take him down,” she snarls. “This second.”

She darts for the door, only to have Pete grab her shirt and pull her back. “You do that, and then guess what happens? MacPherson grabs your girlfriend, and we have a hostage situation on our hands. That is not better.”

“That way nothing’s on fire!” Myka argues.

“You don’t know that. You don’t know if you can take him out before he lights whatever’s in that jug.”

“Watch me,” Myka says. She pulls against his hold.

“Yeah, you’re determined and driven by love and I get that, I really do, but I am not going to let you be an idiot, okay? You can be a hero, but wait till it makes sense to do it.”

Then they all three freeze as the engine clangs and alarms its way around the corner, heading their way.

They watch Tyler, MacPherson, and Helena all turn their heads in the direction of the clamor.

Tyler recovers first. He looks at the container in his hand, depresses a button on its top, and starts to empty it of its contents, right there at the door. He flicks the lighter in his other hand once. It doesn’t catch.

“That’s it!” Myka shouts. She leaps for the door, pushes it open, jostles him so that he drops the lighter. She sees MacPherson reach into his jacket pocket as he begins to step around the desk to get to Helena; Pete was right, he wants her as a hostage. Now Myka lunges for him, charges; she doesn’t think of Tyler once she’s past him, only of Helena’s face, of the gun that MacPherson’s now holding—

But now the look on MacPherson’s face is almost comically surprised, so Myka turns around again. Tyler has the lighter back in his hands, the thermos too, and he’s shaking, saying, “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, just watch me, I’ll do it!”

Myka sees Pete and Kelly outside the door, but Tyler sees them too. “Don’t do anything!” he shouts. “I’ll light it!”

MacPherson says, in a tone that is too derisive, too dismissive, “No, you won’t.”

When Tyler flicks the lighter this time, it sparks.

Myka flings herself back in Tyler’s direction; she thinks that if she maybe can knock him backwards, away from the accelerant, she can keep the whole thing from happening, but he swings the thermos, gets her heavily in the chest, and she falls down, her face against the floor. She hears a gunshot—was it MacPherson? “Helena!” she tries to say, but she can’t say anything, because there’s a rush of heat near her, it has to be a fireball, and the spark must have hit the accelerant, because now Myka feels like she can’t breathe at all, and she thinks, as she’s going under, that it’s just too fast to have made that much smoke, it’s just too fast…

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

Helena is sitting behind the desk at the bookstore. She is thinking about Myka. More accurately, she is thinking about what she will say to Myka tonight, assuming that Myka is ready to talk, able to talk, about what the future might hold. “Myka,” she could begin, “I’ve been thinking.” A true statement, that; she _has_ been thinking, thinking a great deal. “And the fire seems to have concentrated that thinking.” Also a true statement. “As fire often does.” Well, no, Myka knows that; she doesn’t need to be told that. “…seems to have concentrated that thinking in a way that suggests that we might—”

The bell jingles; a dark-haired man comes in. “May I help you find something?” Helena asks.

“I think not,” he tells her. “I’ll look around, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” she says. She thinks he looks a bit familiar, though he certainly isn’t one of the shop’s regular customers… perhaps someone from an ambulance call? But those faces generally begin to smear in the memory the minute they are transferred from the gurney to a hospital bed… _began_ to smear, Helena realizes she should have thought. The minute they _were_ transferred. Because that is all in the past now, and she is trying to think about the future. “I’ve been thinking about the future,” she could say, although that sounds rather science-fictiony; perhaps instead “I’ve been thinking about _our_ future.” That seems more promising, more in line with the way she would like the conversation to go—

Her thinking is interrupted again by the bell, which is this time accompanied by a loud slam of the door against the nearest bookshelves. Helena realizes she did not know the door could even open that far… then she realizes that she is for some reason distracting herself with irrelevancies from the fact that the young man who opened the door so violently is panting, as if he’s been running; he’s holding some kind of thermos container in one hand and a cheap cigarette lighter in the other, and he’s gesturing with the lighter toward the man who came in earlier. “You,” he chokes out, “can’t make me do this anymore!”

The older man says, with a glance at Helena, “Do what? What could you possibly mean?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know me, MacPherson.”

MacPherson. Helena remembers now: this is Artie’s MacPherson; Helena has seen him once, twice?, at the firehouse. But if this is Artie’s MacPherson, then this is also Myka and Pete’s MacPherson. And this situation, she realizes, has become exponentially more dangerous.

MacPherson says mildly, “But I don’t know you.”

“I will set this place on fire right now! I swear to god!”

Helena says, “Wait. Calm down.”

“Calm _down_? Are you crazy?”

“No,” Helena says as mildly as she can. “Why don’t you tell me what the problem is.”

“I’ll tell you what the problem is, it’s that I’m not doing it anymore! I don’t care what he wants burned down after this, I’m done!”

Helena is trying to think whether she can get to her telephone… but it is in the restoration room. She has the incongruous thought that, assuming she gets out of this alive, she will carry it around in her pocket, as Myka carries hers. The landline? She dares a glance below the desk, but no, the handset has disappeared again. She is always taking that with her somewhere and leaving it, too. So. No telephone. She will simply have to keep everyone talking until she can figure something out.

“Tell me your name,” Helena says to the young man.

“Tyler,” he says. “I’m Tyler, and he’s MacPherson.”

“I assure you,” MacPherson says, “that is not—”

“Oh, yes it is,” Helena says. “I know who you are. Just as well as Tyler does, I know who you are.”

MacPherson looks closely at her. He says, “And I know you. You were at 13 as well, were you not? Not as a firefighter… you’re that paramedic Artie found so fascinating. It all begins to make sense, why Lt. Bering is staying here.”

Helena is startled enough to say, “How do you know that?”

“I know everything,” he laughs.

“Not everything!” Tyler shouts. “You didn’t know you were going to die today, did you?”

MacPherson says, “I will not be the one dying today, boy.”

“No one is going to die today,” Helena says. But she notices that MacPherson is edging toward the desk, toward her, and she feels that something terrible _is_ going to happen unless she can figure out how to get Tyler to walk away and MacPherson to… she is not sure what she needs to get MacPherson to do, so she starts with Tyler. “You’re clearly upset, Tyler, and people say many things when they’re upset. Most of those things aren’t true, Tyler. Do you hear what I’m saying, Tyler? I think Mr. MacPherson and I would be quite prepared to tell anyone who asked that you said nothing that made any sense at all while you were in here, isn’t that right, Mr. MacPherson?”

“Ah. Quite right,” MacPherson says. “You’re clearly under some… duress.”

“ _Under some duress?_ ” Tyler forces out. “Yeah, I’m under some duress. But as soon as you’re dead, that’s all over with. This is the last place I have to burn down for you!”

Helena says, very very calmly, “Tyler, you don’t have to burn down this place. Myka’s house—Lt. Bering’s house—that can be the last place.”

Tyler says, “I didn’t want to do that either. She saved my mom from a fire. I tried to warn her, but she didn’t get there in time.”

“But if she saved your mother from a fire… you didn’t want your mother to die that way. Why would you want other people to die that way? ”

“I needed the money,” he says, and he does, to Helena’s ears, sound absolutely guilt-ridden. “MacPherson and that other guy, they gave me a cut. The money was _for_ my mom. But then she did die. Almost six months ago. And I wanted to stop, I swear I wanted to stop. But he set a fire in my apartment, and the building burned down, and it worked, I was scared, so I kept on…”

“Tyler,” Helena says. “I see that you wanted to stop. I know that you wanted to stop. All right. Stop now. Don’t threaten him with fire.”

“It’s the only thing I have,” Tyler says. “I don’t have a gun; _he_ has a gun. He has everything. All I have is right here in my hands, and this is the only chance I’m going to get.”

“This is not a chance, Tyler.”

“But he killed so many people,” Tyler sobs.

“No,” MacPherson barks, “ _you_ killed so many people. _I_ didn’t kill anyone.”

“What about those people in my building? My neighbors? You killed them!”

“Why on earth would you think _I_ had anything to do with that fire? You have no proof. And besides,” he says, “anyone who can’t find their way out of fire’s path…”

Tyler’s face is contorted, confounded. “So my mom should have died in that fire? Is that what you’re saying? If that firefighter, Myka, hadn’t found her… I was just a kid, and my mom would’ve been dead. That’s not supposed to happen.”

“Fire is more powerful than any of us,” MacPherson says.

But then all three of them are caught by an increasing wave of sound, a whine that increases into a siren, a chime that becomes a clang, and they see a fire truck speed up the street.

“Not more powerful than they are,” Helena says.

“We’ll see,” Tyler says. He begins to empty his thermos; at the same time, he flicks his lighter, but it’s halfhearted. He can’t do both things at once, Helena sees. She is trying to determine how best to get around the desk to get to him, when someone—god, it’s Myka—flies through the door and knocks him down.

Helena starts to move, but before she can get far, MacPherson has stepped toward her, and he has a gun, but now Myka is making as if to charge _him_ , but Tyler has the lighter back in his hand now, and Myka has whirled back around.

“I’ll do it,” Tyler says, and it’s both a threat and a taunt. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, just watch me, I’ll do it.”

Helena sees Pete and another woman outside. Tyler shouts at them, “Don’t do anything! I’ll light it!” Now it’s a threat. Now Helena thinks he might not do it, not now that other people are here, particularly Myka. She readies herself to get him talking again; now that Myka’s here, they will be able do this. Tyler doesn’t want to kill Myka.

Then MacPherson says, in a tone that makes Helena wish _she_ were the one holding the gun so she could shoot him for stupidity, “No, you won’t.”

Tyler twists his face again. Then he flicks the lighter—a spark.

Myka flies toward him, as if to knock him backwards through the door, but he gives his thermos a stronger swing than Helena thought possible. It hits Myka with a solid crack, sending her to the floor, and Tyler has dropped the lighter again, directly into whatever chemical he poured, and the entrance jumps into flame.

Helena sees that MacPherson is simply looking at the flame now, so she tries to knock the gun from his hand—he recovers from the chop she gives his arm and fires, blindly—but then Helena gets another chop in, and this time he drops it. She swings her elbow up, at his face, and he stumbles backward.

“Myka!” Helena shouts, but there is no response.

Helena pushes MacPherson into a bookcase, then looks for and finds the gun, grabs it up. She looks to the door, also, but it is not the inferno she expected: instead, she sees an unmasked Amanda, fire extinguisher in hand. There is now no fire at all. “Timed that just right,” Amanda says.

But Tyler is lying on the floor, and so is Myka. “Where is the ambulance?” Helena asks.

“We’re here!” Wolly says as he and Claudia burst in. They go to Tyler first, because—Helena now sees—there is a pool of blood widening around him. The gunshot.

So Helena goes to Myka. She is facedown; Helena turns her over. Her eyelids flutter a little, and Helena shouts again, “Myka!”

Myka wheezes and takes a very shallow breath. “Is it smoke? Can’t breathe… on fire?” She is taking tiny gasps between each word, and her lips are turning blue.

Helena remembers where Myka was hit, and she remembers the sound she heard. “Myka, listen to me,” she says. “Your lung is punctured. Stay calm and don’t struggle. Wolly! Claudia! Pneumothorax!”

Wolly yells, “I can’t leave Tyler—if I do, he’ll bleed out. Claudia, small-bore needle, go!”

And Claudia hesitates. She stands up, but she doesn’t move beyond that. “I haven’t done one in real life,” she says. “I can’t do it! Not on the lieutenant, not if I haven’t done one!”

Helena says, very evenly, “Get the needle, Claudia.” Claudia responds, but, Helena thinks, it is more to the tone than to the words. As Claudia approaches, looking down at Myka with something like horror, Helena goes on, “You have to do this. I can’t—I’m no longer certified, and it is _Myka_ —but I can tell you how. Quickly now.”

Claudia kneels, and Helena says, “Move closer; you’ll need leverage.” Claudia obeys wordlessly.

Helena says, “Open her shirt.” Because Claudia needs to understand, Myka is not the mythical lieutenant now; she is a _victim_. “Between her second and third ribs,” Helena points, “right here, a sure insertion. It requires more force than you think it will, but you’ll feel immediately where to stop.”

Claudia’s hands shake less than Helena presumed they would.

“Very good,” Helena says. “Now release the air. She should respond immediately.”

And Myka does; she takes one breath, then another.

Helena tells Claudia, “Now oxygen. She should be fine, but we’ll need to determine the size of the puncture. We’ll see at the hospital if it’s surgical.”

And once the oxygen mask is in place, Helena allows herself to look around: a presumably no longer bleeding young man is being loaded onto a gurney; James MacPherson has been cuffed by two police officers; the shop’s entryway is scorched but largely intact; and Pete and Amanda are standing by the desk, looking—just looking—at Helena holding Myka on the floor.

Pete speaks first. “Your girlfriend is kind of insane,” he says to Helena.

“I can’t deny it,” Helena says.

“And you’re not exactly riding the train of rationality yourself. I had a bead on MacPherson until you went after him.”

“How was I to know that?”

Amanda says, “That is a very good question, H.G. Here’s a better one: Is Myka really going to be okay?’

“I think so,” Helena says. She looks down. Myka is pulling at the mask, but Helena pushes it firmly back into place. That Myka has the strength to look indignant about it… that is encouraging. Helena tells Amanda, “She’s upset about the mask.”

“That’s a relief,” Amanda says. She walks over, kneels down, pats Myka’s head, and says, “The things we all do to save your ass, I swear.”

Pete follows up with, “Obviously, after you’ve saved everybody else’s, but still.”

Helena says, to both of them, “Thank you.” She looks back down at Myka, who is alive and breathing. Myka is alive, she’s breathing, and Helena loves her. These are the only things that matter—right now, and possibly forever. She leans down to kiss her forehead. When she sits up, there is something like a smile pushing at the edges of the mask that covers Myka’s nose and mouth. There is everything like a smile in her eyes.

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

Myka’s aware, not aware, aware, not aware. The pain in her chest is intensifying, so she prefers the “not aware” parts… she’s in the ambulance and Helena is holding her hand; she’s in the emergency room and Helena isn’t holding her hand. Her eyes are open, then closed; she hears voices: this one is Claudia, “—and she was awesome!” followed by… “Of course she was” from… Vanessa? Yes, Vanessa, who continues, “I’ve never had a better student.” And Helena: “Please stop.”

Then Vanessa says, “Myka, we need to operate on your lung to repair it.”

Myka nods. She opens her eyes to the three of them standing over her. She realizes the oxygen mask is gone, so she says, “It’s okay though?”

Vanessa says, “It’s okay. One to ten, where’s your pain?”

Myka takes a deeper breath. That was a mistake. She grimaces but tries to reassure them all by saying, “Goes to eleven.”

Helena just looks alarmed, but Claudia and Vanessa laugh. “Spinal Tap, H.G.,” Claudia says.

Helena gives both of them a suspicious glare. Myka is tempted to laugh, but she suspects that would go to twelve.

Vanessa says to Helena, “I need to take her up now. Tell her you love her.”

Obediently, Helena says, “I love you.” She runs the back of her hand gently down Myka’s cheek.

And Myka understands that her face must have betrayed her in some way when Helena leans closer and says, “No, not just because she told me to.”

“Okay,” Myka says. She closes her eyes again.

****

Myka wakes up slowly. Hospital, she thinks. I am in the hospital.

She opens her eyes, and there’s Pete. But it’s only Pete, there’s no one else in the room, and what does that mean? “Helena?” she croaks.

“She’s fine,” Pete says. “She’s with Vanessa, Claudia, and Amanda, and they’re making her eat food, because she hasn’t since yesterday morning, I guess.”

“What day is it?” She takes a consciously shallow breath. Not much pain.

“The day after you saved everybody and everything, you hero.”

“I didn’t, though. I was unconscious because my lung was punctured. I didn’t save anybody.” Slightly deeper breath. Slightly more pain, but not too bad.

“If that’s what you need to believe. But they fixed your lung. Remember?”

“Not the surgery itself.” Small cough—still not too bad.

“So your freakish memory can’t see through anesthesia. That’s good to know.”

“Helena’s really all right?” This is the important thing.

“She’s really all right. Although you completely freaked her out when you woke up the first time. Do you remember that?”

Myka tries to think back, but she has nothing between this moment and… the ER, she guesses? Or was that the ambulance? Something about eleven? “No. What happened?”

“Bearing in mind that you were high on meds, okay? You proposed to her.”

“I what? Oh my god, I didn’t. Please say I didn’t.” Myka is terrified that it is true, because she is fairly certain that high on meds, inhibitions removed, she could easily have proposed, in fact said all kinds of things, and it would have freaked Helena out, and—

“No, no,” he assures her quickly, “I’m kidding. You actually proposed to _me_.”

“I absolutely did not.” This, she’s feeling pretty confident about.

“You’re right; I’m kidding again. What you really did was babble about Dickens, and nobody could figure out if you meant the cat or the guy or even just some books, and H.G. had to promise you, like, sixty times that everybody who was ever named Dickens was going to be fine, and so was every piece of paper that had the word Dickens written down on it. You were absolutely crazed. It was hilarious. Almost as hilarious as H.G. swearing to you on all the Bibles in the world while she looked at Dr. C like she was going to kill her for breaking your brain during surgery.”

“So nobody proposed to anybody, right?”

“Well, Claudia might propose to H.G. at some point. She’s giving her the starry eyes of crushdom.”

“Starry eyes of crushdom?”

“Yeah, I think you’re gonna have to, like, duel her if you want your woman back, because oh my god, has that kid got it bad. I think it’s mostly because she, I mean H.G., basically saved your life, back at the bookstore.”

“Did she?” Myka thinks she might remember not being able to breathe, then being able to breathe. That’s about it.

“Yeah. And I gotta go with Claudia on it being pretty awesome, because she was losing it, and H.G. was just like, calm down, save her life, here’s how.”

Myka doesn’t really know what to say to that.

Pete looks out the window. “Hey, the fantastic four just got back.” He raises his voice. “Look who’s awake!”

Helena practically climbs over Amanda to get into the room, but she asks Myka a strangely formal “Are you feeling better?”

Pete remarks,  “She hasn’t said word one about Dickens, so she’s at least fronting pretty well.”

“Out, you lunk,” Amanda says. She grabs his arm, pulls him out of the chair, and starts pushing him out the door. To Myka, she says, “I’m glad you’re awake—well, awake again—and I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Ow!” Pete complains. “What’s the rush?”

“—privacy—” Myka hears Amanda say as she propels him all the way out and pulls the door closed behind her.

“I _am_ feeling better,” Myka says. “Pete told me what happened before… I was a little concerned about Dickens, I guess?”

“A little, yes.” Helena smiles.

“He also said that you saved my life?”

Helena says firmly, “I did no such thing. Claudia saved your life.”

“The way the story was told to me, Claudia couldn’t have done it without you. Also, I hear that she’s in love with you now.”

A small chuckle escapes Helena. “I doubt that.”

“I don’t know. Seems to me like a pretty common condition.”

“I think your perspective is a bit skewed.”

“If so, I like it that way.”

Helena pats her hand and says, “That’s probably the drugs talking.”

“I’m sure that’s it.” They fall quiet for a moment. Then Myka says, “Thank you for saving my life.”

“I told you, I didn’t—”

“Pete made some things up to mess with me. But I don’t think he made that up. And even if he did, you… let’s just say, I’m grateful to you for a lot of things.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“That is not exactly your call to make,” Myka tells her.

Helena looks like she might protest again, but instead she nods. Then she says, “And thank you, in return, for saving _my_ life.”

“No, I _really_ didn’t do that.”

“You knocked Tyler down. That first moment. If you hadn’t, we would all be dead now, and the fire might still be burning. And yet here I am, not dead, _and_ there is no fire.”

“How’s this,” Myka says. “How about we agree that we’re each grateful for the other’s actions?”

“That is reasonable,” Helena says. She nods. “Agreed.”

Myka sighs with something like relief. “That was pretty easy. Should we keep going? If everything’s going to be this easy to resolve?”

“Maybe,” Helena says, but now she’s eying Myka with some suspicion. “Keep going to what?”

“You keep saying we’re going to talk. So, talk.”

Helena’s expression turns unreadable. It isn’t that horribly neutral absence, but it isn’t open either. “I don’t think we should have this conversation with you in a hospital bed. I don’t think I can do that.”

“Because you feel sorry for me?”

“No. Well, I mean yes, I do feel sorry for you, but no, it’s because I would like to be able to… speak freely. And… and I’ll just leave it at ‘speak freely.’” She smiles again, and that’s a little better. “Also, I’d like to be certain that you’re completely lucid, and that you’ll remember what’s said. Because even though you _seem_ fine now… well, apparently you weren’t here at all for our earlier conversation about… Dickens. And other matters.”

And now Myka has to concede the point: she has no idea whether she’ll remember any of this, and that’s an unusual position for her to be in. “Okay,” she says. A thought strikes her. “In that earlier conversation, the one I wasn’t here for… you said there were other matters? Um… I didn’t propose to Pete, did I?”

“Heavens no. Why would you propose to Pete?”

“He was joking around and said I did. I mean, I didn’t think I would have, but…”

“No, you proposed to _me_.”

“What?” Pete and Helena can’t both have made that up, Myka thinks. Which means it’s probably true. Which means that Myka wants to hide under the flimsy hospital blanket. Or maybe just give up and die.

“Well, I would like to think it makes a certain amount of sense. More than your proposing to _Pete_ would.” Helena sounds almost comically annoyed at the idea.

“I guess it does.” Myka decides that, if Helena’s going to be able to joke about it, she might as well go for broke. “So what did you say?”

“I didn’t have a chance to say anything. Amanda accepted on my behalf as she was trying to restrain you. I believe her exact words were, ‘of course she’ll marry you, you idiot, but she can’t if you bleed out.’”

“Oh.”

But now Helena is smiling for real, like she is thinking back on what happened and enjoying it, and Myka is once again relieved. Not a disaster, then. Not a disaster at all. Helena says, “And then the subject changed back to Dickens, and then it was decided that you might need to be sedated, just for a bit.”

“Oh.” Myka looks up at the ceiling. She would laugh at herself, but she knows it would hurt, so she closes her eyes instead. “I’m really sorry.”

“Why? You were apparently having some kind of reaction to the anesthesia. Certainly not your fault.”

“No, I meant I’m sorry about the arranged marriage. But since Amanda set it up, I’m totally making her pony up the goats for your dowry. Or maybe it’s my dowry. Anyway, Amanda’s buying the goats.” She looks over at Helena, who is now smiling a completely indulgent smile.

She says, “I think you’re getting a little tired again.”

Myka tries to think of something clever to counter with, but Helena’s not wrong. All she can come up with is, “Yeah.”

Helena takes Myka’s hand. “Go to sleep.”

“Will you be here when I wake up?”

“I’ll be here, or I’ll be wishing I were here. I’ll make sure someone holds my place for me, all right?”

“Okay,” Myka says. She closes her eyes, and just as she’s drifting away, she feels Helena’s lips against her cheek.

****

When Myka next opens her eyes, she sees Pete again. And again, it’s only Pete.

“Why are you always here?” she asks.

He shakes his head, giving her a little chiding cluck. “We are going to chalk your tone up to the fact that I don’t have long flowing locks and a British accent, and also that I am not a girl, but she had to go deal with bookstore stuff. Amanda and Claudia had to go back on shift, and Dr. C is doing whatever it is doctors do in this place. Some kind of ‘work,’ supposedly. So out of our little club, you are stuck with me.”

“But don’t you have to go to work too?”

“Ah, funny you should ask that. Because I’m actually here because of work reasons, too. And so are a couple other people. Do you feel up to a little more company?”

Myka can’t quite sort through what that might mean, so she says, “I guess.’

“Now the fun begins,” Pete says. He goes to the door and says, “Hey, come on in. She’s awake.”

First, Chief Lattimer enters the room, smiling warmly. “Myka,” she says. “I stopped by yesterday, when you were in surgery—and there were so many people hovering around, waiting. I had to drag some of them back to the firehouse. Steve, Liam, and Wolly said to tell you they were jealous of Amanda and Claudia for getting to see you, and they’ll be here as soon as they can. Artie would be here right now, but Vanessa told him that if he doesn’t let you rest, he doesn’t get to come home, and Leena’s been deemed Vanessa’s enforcer. So that’s where we are. I’m sure Todd would love to see you too, but Amanda’s drunk on the power of temporary command and is making him wash every truck in the house.”

“Okay,” Myka says, a bit faintly.

“And now, a very dear friend of mine would like to talk to you,” the Chief says. She calls softly into the hall, “Irene?”

And Myka wonders if she’s still having that reaction to the anesthesia, because she is pretty sure that it can’t be the case that Irene Frederic, the brand-new governor of their state, is walking into her hospital room.

“Lt. Bering,” says the governor, “we’re all quite grateful to you.”

“Thank you?” Myka says. “I mean, you’re welcome? You know the Chief?”

“For a very long time,” the governor affirms. “She’s been very good about not… relying on our friendship, but in this case, she thought a direct appeal was warranted.”

“Mom’s so cagey, I had no idea they were buddies,” Pete says. “Isn’t it awesome?”

“I guess so,” Myka says, “but what…”

Chief Lattimer says, “You and Pete uncovered one of the larger insurance fraud operations in this state’s history. I am so sorry that it wasn’t until after your house burned down that I understood how important it was to take this to a higher level. I will take responsibility for my inaction—and also for your being here now. You and Pete should have had more resources to draw on.”

“And now you will,” Governor Frederic says. “As my campaign was based largely on a pledge to get corruption out of government, at the state and local levels, I think this is an excellent place to begin. I am setting up a pilot task force here, to investigate cases such as this. I would like for you, Lt. Bering, and you, Inspector Lattimer, to serve on that task force. You seem to work quite well together, judging by recent events, so I think a more official partnership is warranted. If you agree to it, that is.”

“A task force,” Myka repeats.

“Temporarily to start with,” Chief Lattimer adds. “I think this is a better idea for you, Myka, than doing desk work at the firehouse. Since you can’t get back on your truck for a while—Vanessa told me we’re looking at two to three months for your lung to heal sufficiently to even consider exposure to smoke.”

Myka says, trying to keep from sounding too grudging, “That makes sense.”

“And we can be partners!” Pete enthuses.

Myka is not sure how to feel about that. But the governor has asked her to serve, and she can’t very well say no. “Governor, I’d be honored,” she says.

The governor says, “Please, call me Mrs. Frederic. I suspect we’ll be seeing more of each other, as time goes on. I don’t give my trust easily, but you have earned it with your actions in this case.”

“Thank you,” Myka says. “Thank you, Mrs. Frederic.”

Mrs. Frederic nods. “When you’re released from the hospital, you and Inspector Lattimer will report to my office, and we will proceed.” She nods again and sweeps from the room.

Chief Lattimer says, “Well done, Myka,” and follows her out.

“How about that!” Pete says. “Isn’t it awesome?”

“I don’t know what it is,” Myka says. “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed right now.”

“Yeah. I would be too. That’s kind of my whole childhood right there, because once my mom decided it was time to do something about something? It was basically like, suddenly it’d turn out she knew the president, and stuff would start happening. Like now: you should’ve seen the warrants and subpoenas and every other kind of paper you can take into an insurance adjustor’s office. Sykes lawyered up, but I don’t think it’s gonna make a difference. He is going all the way down.”

“I still don’t even know what he did,” Myka says. “So if he was part of it… he and MacPherson had to be planning all of this for ages. Because you said they fought.”

Pete says, and he sounds almost moody, “The part I like the least is where they totally fooled me with that.” Then he brightens. “But the insurance thing was actually pretty simple. It was the fancy replacement cost riders. Sykes was taking them out on properties that just had ACV coverage, then they’d burn ’em down and have the difference between ACV and replacement funneled into a fake mortgage company. Tyler had invented the accelerant—and they needed it because of needing total losses. They tried it on different kinds of structures at first, I guess just to see what would happen, and then they set out to make as much money as they could. Burned places with the biggest insurance gaps. Plus of course Tyler’s building.”

“And my house.”

“And your house. Do you know why they burned your house?”

“To scare me off?”

“Actually, it was to scare _me_ off. When Tyler blew it at Amanda’s place, they sent him to yours.” He almost literally giggles. “Because guess why.”

“I don’t want to guess why.”

“MacPherson got hold of my phone, and I was calling you more often than Amanda, so they thought…”

Myka wants to groan, but she’s pretty sure that would hurt. “Are you seriously saying that my house got burned down because MacPherson thought you were dating both me and Amanda?”

“Pretty much.”

“I am having a billboard put up,” Myka fumes. “In fact, I am putting billboards up all over the city. And every single one of them is going to say ‘Myka Bering is not dating Pete Lattimer.’”

“I am down with that. Helps me out with Amanda too. So when’s the wedding?”

“When’s what wedding?”

“Yours and H.G.’s.”

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot: you lied to me! You told me I hadn’t proposed to her!”

“Because you looked so terrified! You would have lied to you too, if you’d seen your face! But come on, it’s cool, right? H.G. said she told you about it, and it was funny.”

“I have no idea if it’s cool or not,” Myka says.

“It seems all set. I heard Amanda’s supposed to buy you a goat as a wedding present.”

“Not as a wedding present. A dowry.”

“Whatever. How’s this: I’ll goatsit for you while you’re on your honeymoon. Pretty good deal, right?”

“Are we seriously going to be partners?”

“I think so. What do you think?”

Myka looks at him. In spite of it all, and probably also because of it all, she likes him. She sighs. “Yeah, I think so too.”

TBC


	17. Chapter 17

Myka is in the hospital for ten days. Helena spends as much time there as she can, and Helena is not thinking about why this is so; she is just… spending the time. When she is not actually _at_ the hospital, she is generally either in the bookstore—repairs are being made to the entryway, and she is taking this opportunity to widen the door to make it even more inviting—or en route from the bookstore _to_ the hospital. She stops in the apartment only to bathe, change clothes, and deal with Dickens’s food, water, and litter.

Dickens was at first inconsolable regarding this state of affairs. Now Dickens has decided that she will act as if Helena does not exist.

“This is all ultimately for your benefit,” Helena tells the cat. “You’re going to be much happier if Myka is well than if she is not.”

On the evening of the eighth day, Dickens quite literally turns her back on Helena and sits down that way. Helena takes a picture of her small, resentful back.

She shows Myka the picture an hour later and is gratified when Myka is able to laugh relatively easily; laughter is a quite recent addition to her breathing-related repertoire. “She’s never going to speak to either of us again,” Myka says. “Is there a mute Dickens character? We should change her name.”

Helena says, “She’s still perfectly chatty with Caturanga. He visited the shop a few days ago to see the changes and came upstairs for tea. And oh, how _pleased_ she was to see him, with much purring and yowling: ‘dear sweet Caturanga, save me from this neglectful monster.’ Ungrateful little beast.”

“It’s selfish of me, but I appreciate that you’re here instead of there.”

“And I appreciate that you’re a more grateful little beast than Dickens is.”

“I’m trying to be less of a beast. I know I was in a bad mood yesterday.”

“It’s ages you’ve been in here; of course you’re frustrated.”

“You don’t have to be quite so saintly about it. You could get mad at me.”

Helena laughs. “I’m trying to do that only on my own time.”

Myka crosses her arms and leans back. “Well, share it. That way I won’t feel so bad. I mean, it wasn’t your fault they topped the day off by bringing me jell-o.”

“I will say I had no idea you were so averse to gelatin. I had no idea anyone was so averse to gelatin. The sight of it, I mean.”

“If I hadn’t had to hit the meds button, I could have told you more clearly about that call with the homemade napalm. I really just can’t look at that texture anymore.”

 Helena nods. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

“I’m trying to.”

Myka nods back. “Okay. I’m trying to, too. Do you want to try to teach me more chess, or will that put _you_ in a bad mood?”

Helena smiles. “More chess, please.”

“I haven’t gotten any better yet,” Myka warns. “And I probably won’t tonight.”

“That is not the point.” Because the point is that she will set up her small magnetic board, and she will join Myka on the bed, and they will sit very close together as Myka plays terribly and Helena occasionally gives her advice but, mostly, doesn’t think about the board at all.

****

On the ninth day, Myka feels like she’s wearing a sign, or she’s sent up a bat-signal, that says “visiting hours all day today.”

First, Steve and Liam come by. This is the second visit for each, but they’d come individually before; now Myka sees why they were reluctant to see her together. It’s because they’re really _together_. Clearly, they have made some kind of decision about the situation. Which is now a situation.

They look at each other, then at Myka. Then they say, in unison, “We’re together.”

Myka laughs. She’s glad she can do that now, though she does still, every time she wants to laugh, stop for a millisecond to consider whether it’s worth the pain. She’s hoping that reflex will fade. She misses just laughing. “First,” she says, “not the biggest news flash. Second, _perfect_ time to tell me.”

“You won’t be on the truck for a while, though, right?” Steve says. “So this gives you some time to think about it.”

“Some time? I won’t be on the truck for at least two months! But guess who _will_ be on the truck? Oh yes, that’s right: Amanda. And now don’t you wish you’d told me back when _I_ could’ve dealt with the situation? Because now it is all hers. And so are you.”

They both blanch—Steve more so than Liam, but both their faces manage to go pretty impressively pale.

“Didn’t think about that, did you?”

Steve says, quickly, “Maybe you won’t be talking to Amanda for a while.”

Liam follows with, “Maybe you will have too many other things on your mind, things that are not us, when you do.”

“Guys, this is actually a big deal, and you know it. You can’t be on the truck together, because you can’t be objective. You can’t make the right calls.”

Steve protests, “You and Amanda are best friends! How could you make the right calls?”

“That is not the same thing. Look, you know this. It’s like how a surgeon shouldn’t operate on a family member. They can’t—shouldn’t—know how to make that cut. If you two are going to be together, you shouldn’t know how to leave each other behind. Right?”

They look at each other, then back at Myka.

“Amanda knows how to leave me behind—Amanda _has_ left me behind. I know she’d come back in for me, but that’s different. We’re not there to save each other; we’re there to save the victims. But if you’re together? You had better be there to save each other.” She pauses. “Did I make any sense just then? Or am I loopy on the meds again? I still have to stay ahead of a little bit of pain, and I hit the button not too long ago.”

Liam hangs his head. “You made sense.” _He’s so young and so pretty_ , Myka thinks. _Steve is too_. She hopes they make this work. She hopes everybody makes everything work. Then she thinks, _that feels like a very medicated thought_.

“We’ll talk to Amanda,” Steve says. “But she’s going to kill us. You at least wouldn’t have killed us.”

“She’s not going to kill you. She won’t be pleased, but she won’t kill you. She’ll make you flip a coin, or more likely lift weights, to see who leaves, and then she’ll start working on stealing the best replacement she can find. Or maybe she’ll promote Todd and draft the next superstar. She might talk Leena onto the truck. You just never know. She’s an enigma…wrapped in a conundrum… telling a riddle…”

“Those are not exactly the words Todd would use right now,” Steve says.

“Don’t share,” Myka tells him. “She’s still my friend.”

“And your marriage broker?” Liam queries. “She set you up with H.G. for some goats? Claudia was a little confused.”

Steve says, “Claudia wants to marry H.G. _herself_. There’d be a herd of goats living in the garage right now if she thought that’d help her get ahead of you in that game.”

“Do I need to be worried about her jumping me in a dark alley once I get out of here?”

Steve says, “More likely Todd would jump H.G. in a dark alley. For stealing his girlfriend.”

“Um,” Liam says. “I’m pretty sure H.G. isn’t stealing his girlfriend. Because I’m also pretty sure, Steve, that you’ll remember, when you think about it, that H.G. already _has_ a girlfriend.” He points at Myka.

“God knows,” Myka sighs.

“It’ll be fine,” Liam assures her.

“It will,” Steve says.

“Well, so will you two,” Myka says. “Everybody will be fine. Finer than fine.”

“Now you sound a little loopy,” Steve tells her. “We should go. Leave you to your high.”

“I could probably not pass a drug test right now,” Myka admits.

And then Myka wonders if she’s started hallucinating, because Caturanga—Helena’s Caturanga—knocks on the door and asks, “Is it still visiting hours?” He and the boys introduce themselves to each other, the boys scramble out while telling Myka they’ll talk to Amanda as soon as they can (Myka suspects that means “maybe in a week or so,” which means she is going to have to call Amanda and tell her, and won’t _that_ be fun), and Caturanga sits down in the chair next to the bed. “How are you, my dear Ms. Bering?” he asks.

Myka has to acknowledge that she probably has not taken enough drugs to be having hallucinations. It is probably the case that the delivery system is designed to prevent that. So she says, “I’m better. Thank you. Why are you here?”

“I’ll be frank with you: Helena said you were likely to be released soon. And I wanted to… well. Check in.” He leans forward and back as he speaks; it changes the volume of his words as they hit Myka.

“Check in?”

“With you.” This, he says tilted forward.

“Check in with me?”

“Regarding… chess, let us say. Helena says she’s been teaching you to play.” He leans in when he says “chess.”

“Well, there’s not much to do here.”

“And how are you progressing?”

“I’m pretty awful.”

“Really.”

“In my defense, I’m on some medication.”

“Really.”

“Not all the time. A little bit now, though.” She thinks it’s important that he know she’s not like this—whatever “like this” really means at the moment—all the time. He’s important to Helena. What he _thinks_ is important to Helena.

“Very well. May I tell you something about chess, Ms. Bering?”

“Okay.”

“Chess is a conversation—conversation for its own sake, or a proxy for something else. Do you understand me?”

She’s pained to admit it, but: “Honestly? Not really.”

“Consider the opening gambit, Ms. Bering. Do you know what a gambit is? Has Helena taught you that much?”

Myka furrows her brow. “It’s when you risk something, like a pawn.”

“Exactly. You do see. So I will ask you: how do you imagine Helena feels about gambits?”

“I think she feels like I’m really bad at all the ones she’s tried to teach me. But she keeps trying.”

This answer seems to give him some satisfaction, though he is not all the way to happy. He stands up and says, “Ms. Bering, you really are looking very well. And I have great hopes of seeing you again, when your recovery is a bit more complete.”

Myka sighs a little. She realizes she’s going to have to say something, going to have to show that she isn’t as thick as she must be seeming. She says, “Well, that’s probably going to depend, isn’t it.” 

“On?”

“On whether Helena changes her mind about the value of gambits.”

At this, Caturanga smiles broadly. “I like you enormously, Ms. Bering. Not as much as Helena does, of course. I think that I _will_ see you again.”

He leaves after proffering a small bow.

It’s not five minutes before Vanessa Calder walks in, smiling. “It’s official! We’re letting you out tomorrow.”

“Thank god,” Myka says, then immediately realizes how that sounded. “I mean, it’s been great to see you more than usual, so it’s bad to be let out, in that sense, but—”

“But you would like to go home? Gee, that’s funny. So many people love hospitals.” She smiles. “I’ve liked spending time with you too, though I wish you’d been lucid for more of it. Good seeing more of Helena as well.”

“I hope she’s been more lucid than I have.”

“Not entirely. Not when she was worried about you.”

“I don’t know what to say about that.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Just take it easy on her.”

“You want _me_ to take it easy on _her_? She broke up with me and my house burned down and my lung got punctured!”

Vanessa pats Myka’s arm. “I’ve never had my lung punctured. And my house has not burned down. But do you have any idea how many times Artie broke up with me?”

Myka says, “Is this a lesson in how everything works out in the end? Because I just had to fight my way through a chess metaphor, so if you could tell me the lesson up front…”

“The lesson honestly is just: take it easy on her. It took me a long time to really learn that with Artie, and I wish I’d figured it out sooner. Because, Myka, she’s going to show up here tonight, and she’s going to sleep on that cot over there. Just like she’s done every single night.”

“Well,” Myka says, a little petulantly, “I’m not asking her to do that.”

“Myka. Yes you are.” She smiles. “When you’re not asking her to marry you, that is.”

“Oh, god, not you too. I really thought you might leave it alone. That you might be the only one to leave it alone. Did you hear about the goats, too?”

“Of course I heard about the goats. I’ve got dibs on one of them already; I hate mowing the lawn.”

“I wish you’d told me. I would’ve gotten you one as a wedding present.”

“Nonsense. That gorgeous medical textbook from Helena and the fire-engine manual from you? They’re lovely. A beautiful pair of antiques on our bookshelf.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Myka says.

Vanessa smiles. Vanessa has such a comforting smile… “I think,” she says, “that after all, this really might be a lesson in how everything—or almost everything—works out in the end.”

****

When Helena shows up that evening, she’s practically sparkling. She says, “I saw Vanessa, and she told me! I’ll ask Caturanga to mind the shop for the afternoon, so I can bring you home.”

“Helena,” Myka says, though she’s loath to do anything to take that sparkle away, “before you do that, we really do have to talk.”

And, yes, Helena just _fades_. “I told you I can’t do this with you in a hospital bed.”

“Well, then I’ll get out of bed, because I really think we need to do this. You can speak freely. I’m completely lucid; no meds since this afternoon.” Myka sits up; stands up. The doctors and PAs and nurses have been making her walk around more and more, the past few days, and while Amanda is going to be completely appalled at her loss of muscle tone, Myka’s actually starting to feel pretty normal on her feet. On her feet. Not so much in her head. “Here. I’ll say what I need to, and then you can answer or not, okay? If you really can’t do it now, that’s okay.”

Helena nods, so Myka says, “The thing is, it would be easy to just go with you, like I did, after my house burned. For me to just follow you upstairs to the apartment. I remember what it was like to be there, before, and I know part of me would just start pretending, the minute I walked in, the minute I saw Dickens, that it _was_ before, and I could probably pretend like that for a while, and maybe you could too. I can’t get back on the truck for months, you know that. But I don’t want to just say ‘table it till then.’”

Helena says, “Good, because I don’t either.”

“Look, I could tell Pete that it’s going to be permanent. That I won’t go back on the truck at all, that I’ll be an inspector like he is.”

“Are you going to do that?” Helena says this like she’s confused.

“Do you want me to do that?”

“I don’t think that’s relevant.”

“Right after you broke up with me, Amanda told me to quit my job. Problem solved, she said. So yeah, I think it is relevant.”

“Well,” Helena mutters, “I’m glad Amanda knows what would solve our problems.”

“Wouldn’t it? Isn’t that the issue? That I could die on the job?”

“No!” The word bursts from Helena, like she’s been holding it back forever.  “The issue is that you _could die!_ ”

Myka is pretty sure that that’s what she just said. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you are a firefighter. I know that that is a dangerous job.”

“Right. And so you ended it because I was in the emergency room, and that reminded you.”

“No!” Helena exclaims again. “You are not listening to me. I ended it because I was reminded that being surprised, being blindsided, by an ending was not something I wanted to experience again. My daughter was not a firefighter. You could be a lawyer, a teacher. A writer. It wouldn’t matter. I don’t care that you’re a firefighter. I care that you’re _mortal_. _That_ is what I have to, or have had to, come to terms with.”

“And have you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Myka sighs out. Every time she thinks she understands, she doesn’t. Every time she thinks that they can just be themselves, be themselves _together_ , again, finally, they can’t.

But Helena goes on, combing a hand through her hair, pulling harder than she should. “What I do know is that the idea of something happening to you, anything at all, something that I wouldn’t know about, wouldn’t be a part of… that isn’t _right_. Amanda asked me after the fire at your house if I would be going home. And I wanted to say, ‘without seeing to Myka?’ It made no sense at all… you’re right, we wouldn’t be here if your house hadn’t burned down. But we wouldn’t be here if not for Dickens, either. All versions. We wouldn’t be here if not for other tragedies, and accidents, and things no one could have foreseen… or maybe they all happened for this. I don’t know anymore.”

Myka goes to her and takes the hand with which Helena is torturing her hair. She takes Helena’s other hand, pulls both of Helena’s arms around her own body. She holds Helena’s arms in place as she says, “I don’t know either. I just want to know if when I leave here tomorrow, I get to go home. Do I get to go home?”

“I think,” Helena says, “that if I don’t bring you home, I will be facing a veritable army of people, plus a cat, plus indeed a dog and several goats, who will band together and travel to wherever you are in order to pick you up and deposit you in my mail slot. And I would like to save them the trouble.”

“I think that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Myka says. But she lets go of Helena’s arms—which Helena leaves where they are, she notes, and even tightens her hold—and slides her own arms around Helena’s shoulders.

“Do you? All right, try this: I don’t want you to go anywhere else. I was trying to protect myself, and that was all that mattered to me. I was trying to protect myself, when I should have thought instead about protecting you.”

Myka closes her eyes, rests her forehead against Helena’s. “And is it all right that I’m mortal?”

“It isn’t all right at all. But I suppose I’ll have to accept it.”

“Okay. Is it all right that I’m about to kiss you?”

“I suppose I’ll have to accept that too.”

“Sounds like a real hardship,” Myka says.

“You have no idea.”

And when they kiss, it feels like before, but different; like before, but _more_ , because so much has happened, and Myka is overcome by the way Helena’s lips and tongue still move so exquisitely, and how the way her body responds immediately just takes her breath away… and then she realizes that that’s because her breath has literally been taken away, and she has to back up and wheeze out a little “can’t breathe” and sit down on the edge of the bed until she gets her breath back. Which she does, and it’s fine, but she’s probably scared Helena to death…

She looks up to see Helena calmly rummaging in her satchel, pulling out the chess board. “Nothing more strenuous than this tonight, I think,” she says. “You’ll be fine. We just need to… build up your capacity.” She comes to the bed, leans over, and kisses Myka again, this time relatively briefly. “One step at a time.”

TBC


	18. Chapter 18

Helena stops by the firehouse to pick up Myka’s remaining things—she has so few things of her own at this point, and Helena would like to have at least these few belongings at home in the apartment, so that Myka might have a vague sense of its truly being home, of belonging, of actually having belongings.

A cornered part of Helena had wished, after Christina’s death, for a fire, one that would sweep away everything, and if it did not kill Helena—and most days, she hoped for that—it would at least remove every reminder at once, every bit of _before_. There would be no toys, no books, no chess, no chair… not even the clothes Helena had worn when she was Christina’s mother. The skin of before would burn away.

What would have taken its place, however, she has no idea. And she suspects that Myka has no idea what will take the place of her own skin of before. Helena wants to say, here, take mine…

…but that isn’t right. She can bring Myka home, to what had already begun to become her home, but she can’t instantly reclothe her, give her souvenirs, family photographs, the audiotape on which her grandmother’s voice was recorded. Even things that she thought were replaceable, but that she would never bother to replace: Myka had told Helena that she once played a great deal of tennis, but not anymore, but the racquet still lived in the garage, because you never know, do you? Yes, it had been a generic box of a house, perhaps not even Myka’s home. But things accumulate.

Though they do not seem to have accumulated at the firehouse. Helena, with Leena’s help, pulls from Myka’s locker all the things that are neither uniforms nor gear… and they stare at the paltry pile on the bench before them. Toiletries, sneakers, T-shirts, jeans, a pair of glasses, earplugs, six paperbacks from various genres, a dictionary, a small toolkit, and two decks of cards. Plus a lavender-scented eyeshade pillow that Helena herself had bought for her.

“She certainly travels light,” Leena says.

“Yes,” Helena says.

“Except now there’s you.”

And Helena finally understands something: the look of relief that had crossed Myka’s face when she thought Helena had come to the firehouse to take Dickens off her hands.

****

As Helena is leaving the firehouse with a smaller-than-expected box, she sees Claudia, sans Wolly. Claudia squeaks “H.G.!” and drops the package of syringes she is carrying.

“How are you?” Helena asks. She has not seen Claudia since the… second day in the hospital? Yes, when she had been part of the team forcing Helena to down a bowl of soup. Or possibly some other time; the parts of the hospital stay that do not involve Myka are essentially a blur of endless walking through sickly-lit corridors.

“I’m good!” Claudia says overenthusiastically, bending to retrieve the syringes.

“No opportunities to practice your pneumothorax technique?”

“No opportunities for anything at all,” Claudia groans. “Which is good for _people_ , I guess, but it’s so, so boring.”

“Something will no doubt happen soon. And if history is any guide, it will make you recharacterize the tedium as a golden age.”

Claudia says, “I guess. But I really do dig the exciting parts. Except for when I’m an idiot, like I was with the lieutenant. I can’t… I mean, I could apologize forever to her, and to you, and it wouldn’t be enough. She could’ve died because of me, because I was scared and slow and—”

“Claudia,” Helena says firmly. “Claudia. We all— _all_ —make mistakes. We all hesitate at inappropriate times. We doubt our abilities. We look at what is in front of us, and we are certain we cannot possibly do what we should. And yet you did, in the end.”

“Only because of you.”

Helena feels that she needs to deal with the look that is on Claudia’s face. “It was practice, darling. Nothing but practice. And now you _have had_ practice. And you will have more. And you will look back on this incident and wonder what could possibly have made you hesitate. All right?”

Claudia nods. She says, “But okay, then, practice, and you’ve had a lot, and you’re so good at it. How could you possibly have given it up? If you know how to be that calm when things are that crazy… you’re so _good_ at it.”

“Being good at something is not enough. You have to want to do it, and right now, I want to deal in books. They lie on the table far more quietly than people do.”

“You don’t have to be in an ambo. You could go back to being a surgeon!”

“I was never a surgeon, darling. I didn’t even finish medical school.”

“Details,” Claudia says. “Dr. C said you’d’ve breezed through the rest, and then it’s just, you work for less money than the real docs for a while, and then it’s you and Dr. C, kicking asses and saving lives! What I wouldn’t give to drive up to the hospital and hand vics off to you guys!”

“You already hand them off to Vanessa. To Dr. Calder, I mean.”

“But it’d be even better with you there too!”

Clearly, the look that is on Claudia’s face will not be departing soon. Helena says, “In any case, I will not be finishing medical school today. Today, I will be bringing your lieutenant home from the hospital.”

“Amanda told us it would probably be today. Tell her everybody misses her… everybody except Todd. He _would_ miss her, but he hasn’t really had time to think about her.”

“I’ve heard that Amanda is being somewhat… strict with him.”

“He keeps saying he’s going to die. I think he’s just upset that his fingers are all pruny from having to wash trucks and dishes and everything in the locker room every shift he’s on.”

“It’s rather difficult to be the new one,” Helena says.

“Sure was hard to be new around here _and_ have everybody hate me because I was replacing _you_ ,” Claudia agrees. Then she drops the syringes again. “God, what I mean is, it was complicated.”

“I hurt more people than I realized,” Helena acknowledges. “I always seem to do that. I’m sorry you were among them, Claudia.”

“I think it evens out,” Claudia says.

****

It’s after seven at night by the time Myka manages to finish all the paperwork that will free her from the hospital. “I had no idea it would take this long,” she keeps apologizing to Helena, who keeps assuring her that they are on no schedule, that Caturanga will have closed the bookstore, that all Myka has to worry about is her hand cramping from signing her name the apparently thousands of times that are necessary.

As they near the end of the at-long-last drive home, Helena gestures to a box in the back seat of her car. “Your things from the firehouse,” she says.

“I had things at the firehouse?”

Helena gives her a pointed look. “Not many things. But I thought you might like to have them. Of course we’ll need to buy you clothes and whatever else you need…”

“Maybe I do need that dowry after all,” Myka says.

“Funny you should say that about the dowry,” Helena tells her. They are climbing the stairs to the apartment.

“Funny because…”

“Because,” Helena says, opening the door.

Myka hears “SURPRISE!”, feels her heart jump, and tentatively peeks inside.

Pete is holding Dickens up by her ribcage, facing Myka, and Dickens looks as astonished at this turn of events as Myka is sure that she herself does. Amanda is shaking her head at Pete. Myka looks at Helena. She, too, is shaking her head at Pete. “I thought we agreed,” she says, “about this surprise business.”

Pete is not bothered at all by Helena’s tone. “Amanda agreed. I didn’t. Dickens didn’t either, did you, boy?”

“She’s a girl, you idiot,” Amanda says.

“It’s a thing she and I do,” he says. “Right, fella?”

Amanda says, “You never met her before today! How can you have a thing that you do?”

“We’ve gotten way close over the past couple hours.”

Myka says, “That’s my fault. If I could sign my name faster, we’d’ve been here ages ago.”

Pete nods. “It’s okay, partner. Me and Dickens, we are solid, aren’t we, little man?” Now he’s cradling Dickens, and now she looks about as happy as she can look. She’s going to want to cinnamon-roll herself up next to him all evening, Myka can tell. She sighs.

Helena says, “I apologize to you both. I meant to cook something, once we got home, but given the hour…”

“Pizza!” Pete exclaims. “Or Chinese. Or isn’t there a Mexican place not too far from here that delivers? I’m not picky.”

Amanda says, “Myka is, and this is her party. Her very small party.”

“Tonight, if it wasn’t made in a hospital, I’ll eat it,” Myka declares.

“Awesome!” Pete says. He hands Dickens off to her. “Purr for the lady, son, while I go and order one of everything off a Chinese delivery menu.”

“And he’ll do it,” Amanda sighs.

Myka looks down at Dickens, who is clearly unsure as to whether Myka should be ignored, embraced, or disciplined. She settles on a yowl that somehow manages to convey a strong sense of all three. There is also a strong sense of “put me down,” so Myka does that.

“So I have a homecoming present for you,” Amanda says. She goes to her bag on the sofa and pulls out a medium-sized something, which she holds behind her back as she returns to Myka. “Guess.”

“If it isn’t a goat, I’m going to be really disappointed,” Myka tells her.

Amanda deflates. “Of course it’s a goat,” she says, showing Myka the stuffed animal. “But you weren’t supposed to be able to guess!”

“If you had any idea how many times I have heard the word ‘goat’ over the past ten days… my only other guess was something about chess, but you weren’t a party to any of that. It’s a cute goat, anyway. Pretty paltry for a dowry, though.”

“I’ll see if I can add to the herd,” Amanda says. “Meanwhile, I think somebody’s considering culling that herd.” She points down at the floor.

Dickens is looking up at the goat, in Myka’s hands, as if she has treed it.

“This is _my_ goat,” Myka tells her.

Dickens keeps staring.

Amanda says, “Your call, _lieutenant_ , but she might climb you to get to it.”

Myka sighs and starts to lean over to just _give_ her the thing, but Dickens rears up on her hind legs, grabs the goat with her front paws, and proceeds to make a decent, if unsuccessful, attempt at evisceration.

Myka looks over at Helena, who’s been notably silent, barely even present, since they got here. “You okay?” she asks.

“I was trying to think of the last occasion on which four people were in this apartment together,” Helena says. “It’s been a very long time.”

Amanda says, “I can make Pete eat outside if you’d rather it be three. Honestly I think we all might be happier then.”

“No, no,” Helena says. “Four is… four is fine.”

Myka goes to her and kisses her cheek. “Thank you. And later it’ll be two.”

“That’s also fine.”

TBC


	19. Chapter 19

“Can you breathe?”

It’s a question in the dark, a question that Helena feels she has to ask, has to keep asking, because Myka might not be able to, because of what happened in the hospital, because it might be too soon for this. But Pete and Amanda had left, and Helena had suddenly had Myka to herself, alone, with everything clear between them—or as close to clear as everything was likely to get—and she couldn’t keep herself from pouncing on Myka, practically as Dickens would, touching her and kissing her and trying to do everything else, all at the same time.

It’s almost funny, almost a comedy, because Myka is just as eager, and they shed clothes as they stumble to the bedroom, trying to maintain as much contact as possible,  finally feeling skin on skin, pushing at the light switch to darken the room, tripping over the edge of the rug on the floor, falling to the bed… but Helena falls on top of Myka and feels her breathe out heavily. “Are you all right?” she asks then, and Myka nods, and they resume, but as they become more intense, more driven, and Helena senses tension and tightening and starts to feel like this is exertion, this is physical _work_ , and her own lungs are hot, and suddenly she is not in the moment anymore; she is terrified that Myka will be hurt. So she asks, “Can you breathe?” and Myka starts pouring the word “yes” into her ear, says “don’t stop, don’t stop,” and so she doesn’t, and they don’t, but when they are happy and satisfied, as she lies with her head against Myka’s chest, she wants a stethoscope, wants more proof, wants to make _sure_.

So even after that, she feels she has to ask, has to keep asking, “Can you breathe?”

And that question becomes a strange sort of refrain, a shorthand between them.

****

They go to a firehouse picnic together; Helena is far better than she was, given the time, given all that’s happened. Myka sees her talking to Claudia, to Vanessa, then to Wolly—and after that, she goes to sit alone at the picnic table that’s farthest away from any activity.

Myka’s trying to concentrate on what Artie’s saying about the new truck the house is supposed to be getting, but she keeps glancing Helena’s way. Finally, Artie says, “Would you just go over there already?”

She’s already halfway to Helena when she thinks to toss a “thanks” back to him. He just shakes his head and smiles.

In an instant, Myka’s kneeling beside Helena, asking very quietly, “Can you breathe?”

Helena gives a small laugh. “Slightly obstructed airway,” she says. “Wolly and I were talking a bit about Christina. It’s been almost two years now… she’d be ten already. He said he just wanted to say that he missed her too. That he hadn’t ever been able to say that to me.”

“Did they spend time together?”

“They did. Christina loved him of course. He and Caturanga were the main male figures in her life.”

“Quite a combination of role models.”

“They certainly were. She kept saying she wanted to drive an ambulance, like Wolly, but her ambulance would save books, like Caturanga did.” Helena wipes at her eyes—she isn’t exactly crying, Myka sees; she’s stopping herself.

“If you want me to leave you alone, I will,” Myka says. “If you need the space. The space and the air. But also, since I haven’t ever been able to say _this_ to you: I envy them. That they knew her. That they knew you with her.” She kisses Helena’s shoulder.

Helena breathes in, a great shudder. “I’m glad they know me with you.”

****

Myka has been on the task force for three months. She and Pete are summoned by Mrs. Frederic, who says that she is pleased with their work, but that she has no desire to coerce them. They can decide for themselves if they want to continue, but if they do make that decision, she will consider it at least semi-permanent. When Myka tells Helena this news, Helena asks, “Well, can you breathe? At the thought of it?”

Myka isn’t sure. “Do you mind if I talk to Amanda about it too?” she asks Helena.

Helena says, “I don’t mind if you need to talk to everyone in the city about it. I want you to be able to live with yourself once you decide, and I’m fairly certain that will require your breathing freely.”

Myka finds Amanda at the firehouse, in the weight room, of course, but all Amanda wants to do is rave about Abigail Cho, her star new probie on the truck. “Smart, smart, smart,” Amanda says of her. “Kind of like you: she thinks about how people are likely to think. Knows where the ball’s going to go before it’s thrown, you know?”

“I miss that feeling,” Myka admits. “In this job, I feel like… like I need help. Not the same way as needing backup in a fire. Like the other day, I just couldn’t figure out why this one guy would be taking the bribes we thought he was. I needed a motive, and I’m not good with motives. Pete just said, ‘duh, because of his sister,’ and I was just… I mean, why couldn’t I _see_ it?”

“That’s why you two are _partners_ ,” Amanda tells her.

“Because I’m so stupid I can’t figure things out for myself?”

“No, mostly because Pete’s that stupid. But really, I’m guessing it’s because the things are complicated. It’s not like a burning building.”

“That’s plenty complicated.”

“But only at the time,” Amanda says. She starts in with biceps curls. “All the decisions are snap. I guess that’s the thing. Do you want to make snap decisions, or do you want to spend more time thinking?”

“I spent plenty of time thinking before this!”

“Because you were in command. I spend more time thinking now than I did.”

“You might spend even more time someday. Pete told me that his mom told you that you could head the entire FD, given how you’re running this truck.”

“I think she was trying to buck me up—I’d just made a boneheaded call, and if Steve hadn’t been smart enough to know it, he and Todd would probably both be dead now.”

“You know I’ve given my share of orders I wanted to take back. But you get better at it. And I know I’ve never seen you make the same mistake twice.”

Amanda switches arms. “Let me ask you this: if you get back on a truck, what’s your plan?”

“What do you mean, what’s my plan?”

“Well, do _you_ want to run the FD someday? Because obviously you could too. Or do you just want to run that truck until you hit retirement?”

“I’d save people if I did that. That was the whole reason for doing it in the first place.”

“I think you’ll probably save a lot more people, in the end, by making sure this city’s clean. And then, hey, then, I’ve got it! I can run the FD, and you can be mayor! That would be awesome.”

“’Awesome?’ You have clearly been spending too much time with Pete.”

Amanda smiles. “Just the right amount of time. But you should think about it. I think it’s a faster way to get somewhere, working for the governor. And I think you belong somewhere. Like I said, you’ll save a lot more people.”

****

When Myka goes home that night, she finds Helena downstairs, hunched over her magnifying apparatus, watching her fingers use a cotton swab to buff at the striations on a book cover. Helena is absorbed, focused… gorgeous.

The sight has the effect on Myka that it always does; she goes to Helena and kisses the back of her neck. “You know, I’m starting to associate the smell of that Meltonian polish with taking you out of your clothes.”

“I’m fine with you taking me out of my clothes whenever you like—well, generally—but I would in fact be incredibly embarrassed to have Caturanga find out what we’ve been getting up to in here,” Helena says. “We nearly broke the table last time, and how would I have explained _that_?”

“Spoilsport,” Myka accuses, but she backs off.

“I do have Meltonian all over my hands,” Helena says. “And you don’t actually like the way it smells. I’d hate for the association to start working the other way. Did you talk to Amanda?”

“I did. And… okay, here’s a question: can _you_ breathe?”

“I told you, I have Meltonian all over my hands. I’m surprised I’m _conscious_.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“All right,” Helena says. “Let’s go upstairs. I feel like I might need tea for this.”

“You might want to be conscious, anyway,” Myka tells her.

And once they are upstairs, when Helena has her tea in hand, she asks, “So am I to assume this has something to do with your talk with Amanda?”

“It does.”

“And are you returning to the firehouse?”

“I don’t think so. Because Amanda wants to be head of the FD.”

“And you can’t bear to imagine that she will one day be your superior?”

“Actually, she wants me to be _her_ superior. She wants me to be the mayor.”

“Interesting. And you agreed?”

“Not necessarily. But we were talking about saving people. A buildingful, maybe, that’s a good day on the truck. But if Pete and I bring down these dirty players? I mean, it’s not like getting a grab. It’s not like that at all.”

“The rewards are in the longer term.”

“Yeah.” Myka says. And then she says the thing she’s been thinking about, all the way home. “You used to save a lot of people.”

“Not a buildingful at a time.”

“No. But you clearly always wanted to save people. You were going to be a doctor.”

“Yes, I was. But fate intervened. Then it intervened again, and here I am. And again, and here _we_ are.”

“I know. But Amanda asked me if what I really wanted to do was run a truck till I hit retirement.”

“And you don’t.”

“I don’t. Do you want to run the bookstore until you hit retirement?”

Helena doesn’t answer.

“You don’t have to know,” Myka says. “And the answer can be yes, and it’s fine; I’ll be here. But if the answer’s no, that’s fine too, and I’ll still be here.”

“No you won’t. You’ll be in the mayor’s mansion.”

“I don’t think the mayor gets a mansion.”

“A well-appointed apartment?”

“I think the mayor just lives… wherever the mayor lives.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“Why?”

“I assume I’ll have social duties as First Lady. And as we’ve found out from having company here, there is a limited number of people who can fit into that living room with any degree of comfort.”

Myka stares at her. Shakes her head a little. Because did she just say…

Helena goes on, “I assume we’ll be married by then. Unless you’re planning to become mayor in the next year or so, because other than that? The engagement starts to seem embarrassingly long.”

“What?”

“Your proposal was accepted. And you received a goat to seal the deal, as it were.”

“Dickens barely lets me touch that goat!”

“I don’t see how you’re going to persuade the people of this city to vote for you if you can’t talk a very small cat out of a goat.”

“Are we actually engaged?”

“I think I’d like you to try to persuade me that we are. Then we can talk about this other business.”

“Can we?”

“We can. I want to. But I also want to finish what we started downstairs.” She goes to Myka and kisses her. “Do you really want to marry me, or was that simply a product of delirium?”

“Why would you ask me that? You know it was completely a product of delirium. I’ve been delirious over you since that first day in the bookstore.”

Helena says, a little sadly, “All joking aside, I wish I could say the same.”

“I don’t care. All that matters to me is if you’re delirious now. Are you?”

“I did just spend quite some time breathing fumes. So yes, I’m extremely delirious.”

“All joking aside, think about breathing,” Myka says.

“I will,” Helena says.

“Okay. Now I’ll start that persuading.” She moves behind Helena, puts her lips on her neck. “I think I was here, wasn’t I?”

“I think the voters will find this _very_ persuasive.”

TBC


	20. Chapter 20

“Breathing all right?”

“I couldn’t possibly judge. Are you?”

“I have no idea. Am I standing up, at least?”

“Your head seems to be its usual few inches above mine, so yes. Well done. Now all we have to do is walk in and do the deed.”

“Nobody said anything about _walking_. That is _way_ too much to expect.”

“Is there an alternative?”

To the astonishment of their expectant wedding guests, Myka runs down the aisle, pulling a laughing Helena behind her, and they arrive in front of their officiant (an amused Vanessa Calder) breathless but breathing. Their attendants—Amanda for Myka, Wolly for Helena—are shaking their heads.

Vanessa says, “Since everyone’s in such a hurry, we’d better get started.”

****

Myka hasn’t had much time to sit down and think about it, but if she had, she would most likely have thought about how a lot can happen in two years. Well, if she were to think about it, she would think about how a lot can happen in two _hours_ —your house can burn down, for example—but in the two years since her house did burn down, Myka has acquired a new career, not to mention a partner in that new career, and even more, she has acquired a substantially new life, not to mention a partner in that new life, a partner who has herself found a new life, and who is, today, going to become her lawfully wedded spouse. If she ever shows up.

Because of course, everyone—or almost everyone—is late. Later even than they were for Artie and Vanessa’s wedding: a house fire has turned into a several-houses fire, and a car crash on the highway has turned into a several-cars crash on the highway. Since most of the people Myka and Helena know are firefighters, EMTs, or doctors, that’s left the first scheduled hour of the affair pretty sparsely attended.

The only major players who are here, in fact, are Myka herself, Pete, Caturanga, and Mrs. Frederic (plus Mrs. Frederic’s security detail). Myka has apologized to Mrs. Frederic at least fifty times. Mrs. Frederic has each time responded with some variation on, “Firefighters. Doctors. If only you and Mr. Lattimer were technically on the police force, then I’m sure it would be simply myself and Mr. Caturanga, enjoying a pleasant cocktail in the hotel bar.”

“And your little knot of family,” Pete says to Myka this latest time, gesturing toward Myka’s father, mother, and sister. “Go talk to them for real, for crying out loud.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Myka whispers to him.

“You aren’t the kind of jerk who says ‘hi’ to your family and then ignores them. This is a big, sweet day; you’ve got a big, sweet opportunity. Don’t blow it.”

Myka would get more annoyed with him, but she knows Helena would be saying the same thing. Helena was the one who’d pushed Myka to ask them to travel for the ceremony, saying, “I don’t have a family anymore, and you do, however estranged you feel from them.”

Myka said, “Of course you have a family. What am I, chopped liver?”

“If you were, Dickens would be thrilled.”

“Well, speaking of family.”

“Dickens barely tolerates our existence.”

“I don’t know how your family worked, but that’s a pretty accurate description of mine.”

“Nevertheless, call them.”

So Myka had, and here they are, and yes, she knows Pete’s right. “Fine,” she tells him. He gives her a thumbs-up. Mrs. Frederic, and Caturanga offer her strangely similar smiles.

****

“Sorry again about the delay,” Myka says. She waits. Okay, fill some space: “Is your room here okay?”

“It’s fine,” her father says.

“Very nice,” her mother corrects.

“Pretty fancy,” her sister, Tracy, enthuses.

“That’s good,” Myka says. Okay, fill some more space. “Everybody should be here soon. I know I said that before, but this time it might be true. Artie called a while ago and said that things at hospital are slowing down a little.”

Her mother says, “We don’t have anywhere else to be.”

“Or anywhere that we would rather be,” Tracy says firmly.

Myka wishes Tracy had let her in on the decision to cease hostilities. Or apathies. Or whatever had caused their problems…

Tracy says, “It’s pretty impressive that the governor of your entire state is here at your wedding. Or here waiting for your wedding. That’s actually more impressive, when you think about it.”

“It turns out that I’m working for her pretty directly now.”

“That’s what Helena said. It seems exciting—you’re almost like a secret agent, aren’t you? With a gun and a badge and everything? And you go on missions!”

“Kind of, but… wait, Helena said what? And _Helena_ said?—I mean, _when_ did Helena say anything to you? When did you—”

“I called you,” Tracy says. “But she had your phone and you had hers? Something about book restoration and being in a hurry and mixing them up? Anyway, she answered your phone, and we talked.”

“About…”

“You, mostly. Which was kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. Well, you, and me, and the family, because it’s your wedding. I wanted this to be easier. Right, Mom? Right, Dad? Wasn’t that the plan? That this would be easier than usual?”

“That was the plan,” their mother agrees.

“I suppose,” their father says.

Tracy says to Myka, “How could you have never told her that Dad has a bookstore? And how could you not have told Dad that your girlfriend owns a bookstore?”

“It didn’t come up,” Myka says. But okay, yes, she’s the one at fault here… or if not at fault, exactly, she’s certainly the one who decided not to think about certain things.

“Helena said you live in an apartment _over_ the bookstore! How could it not have come up?”

“You win,” Myka says. “I should’ve… okay. Here’s something: Dad, I have a cat.”

“Pardon?” her father says.

“I have a cat. Her name’s Dickens.”

“You always did like Dickens,” he says.

“So do you, Warren,” her mother says. “You started reading her _Martin Chuzzlewit_ when she was in her crib.”

“Put you right to sleep,” he tells Myka.

“It would put me to sleep _now_ ,” Tracy says.

Myka says, “You still like Austen, though, right?”

Tracy nods. “I’m still stereotypical like that.”

Their mother says, “That’s because _I’m_ the one who read to you in _your_ crib.”

“It’s not stereotypical,” Myka tells her. “I never should have said that to you. I was…”

“Younger,” says their mother.

“Stupid,” Myka corrects.

“If there is one thing you have never been,” her father says, “it’s stupid. Too much of a risk-taker, maybe. Scaring us to death, certainly with the firefighter business.”

Her mother says, “In a way it was easier, for a long time, not to know about the day-to-day. Because if we’d known… well, I would have worried. Your father would have been angry, and I would have worried.”

Tracy tells her, “For a long time, I would have pretended I didn’t care at all.”

Myka is not sure she has ever met these people before. “Why are you telling me this? Why are you telling me this _now_?”

“Well, we’re _here_ ,” Tracy says.

“We’re all a bit older and wiser,” their mother adds.

“Plus,” Tracy says, “I really like Helena. So far, I mean.”

This makes Myka smile. “So do I. So far.”

And it’s a reward, she thinks, for having tried familying, a little, and not quite failing at it: she looks up and sees, trooping into the ballroom, Vanessa, and Artie, and Steve and Liam and Leena and Claudia and the Chief and just about the entire rest of the fire department and hospital staff—and bringing up the rear are Amanda and Wolly, and between them, finally, at last, really, truly, after all… there’s Helena.

“I don’t even have to ask which one she is,” she hears Tracy say.

Their mother says, “I know. I saw whose face lit up. Well, Myka’s too, of course. But she’s lovely, Myka. She’s lovely.”

“She’s wearing a lab coat,” their father says.

“I think that means she was in a hurry,” Tracy says. “And I don’t think Myka cares about the lab coat one bit.”

****

Helena finds that, at one’s wedding, once one has said the words “I do,” one does not actually get to spend very much time at all with the person one has said them to. She and Myka had been right next to each other to start with, she is sure, but then she was pulled one way by some of her fellow interns from the hospital, and Myka was pulled another by firehouse denizens, and suddenly she has no idea where the person to whom she has pledged her troth has disappeared to. 

She is also starving, and she had thought that the fact that their dinner is buffet-style would allow her to at least touch the food… Claudia walks by her, holding a plate, and Helena pounces. “If I could just have one of those… what _are_ those?” she asks. She is fairly certain they had approved certain dishes and rejected others, and this looks like none of those.

“Beats me,” Claudia says. “But go ahead, because congratulations! You got married _and_ a bunch of people who could have died didn’t! That’s a pretty good day, if you ask me.”

“A _long_ day,” Helena says. The thing she is eating might include bacon, but she is not sure.

“At least you knew something really good would happen at the end of it.”

Wolly appears, wielding a plate of his own, and says, “But the night is young, Claudia, and she’s an intern. She’s probably on call.”

“Not on my wedding night,” Helena says. “And thank you, best man. I felt very supported.”

Wolly kisses her cheek. “I’m glad. I’m glad about a lot of things.”

On cue, Helena’s eyes find Myka, and Myka’s find hers. Myka gestures “come here,” and Helena says to Wolly, “I am too.”

****

“The idiot was seriously just trying to kill a spider,” Amanda is saying as Helena nears.

“Kill a spider?” Helena asks. She hasn’t had time to find out about the fire, and apparently this is Myka’s first chance to, as well. “By burning down the house?” She takes Myka’s hand, leans against her side. Considers sliding down her side to sit on the floor.

“That wasn’t ‘the plan,’ he said. ‘The plan’ was that he’d take a can of spray paint and a lighter, and these two totally nondangerous things would make an easy-to-control blowtorch, with which he’d easily and simply kill the spider.”

Myka says, “A paper towel was just too complicated for him?”

Amanda smacks her in the head. “You’re not listening to me. _He was an idiot_. Or, he _is_ an idiot, though why natural selection didn’t demand he burn himself down along with half the houses in his neighborhood, I have no idea.”

“Everybody make it out?” Myka asks.

“He didn’t kill anybody, fortunately—none of ours, none of his neighbors. But jesus, the resources it took. Idiot. Made you wait to get married, too. Idiot.”

“Part of that was the car crash, also caused by an idiot. But we got married despite their idiocy,” Helena points out.

Amanda smiles, kisses them both. “Thank heaven. I can finally stop listening to Myka dither about the details.”

Helena looks up at Myka, expecting her to dispute the characterization, but Myka says, “Yeah. I dithered. I wanted it to be perfect.”

“It was. It is.”

“Get a room,” Amanda laughs.

This makes Helena laugh too, because she had said, some weeks ago, to Myka, “Do you remember which room we were in? That first time?”

“You seriously want to try to get the same room? The same hotel isn’t enough?”

“I’d like it to be there. Because it was so…”

“Mm. It definitely was. How could I not have known how sentimental you are?”

“This isn’t precisely sentimental. I don’t really feel _nostalgia_ for it; it’s just that it was so… ‘special’ seems a weak word, but for want of something more descriptive…”

“I could not tell you the room number if you had me at gunpoint. All I know is we were in the elevator—and I’d like to get the same elevator, too, by the way—and then we were in a room. And you’re right, ‘special’ is an incredibly weak word. How about overwhelming. Passionate. Bodice-ripping.”

“Do not make fun of me.”

“X-rated?”

“Well, it was that. And it might be again…”

“I’ll find out which room,” Myka said. She had said it quite fervently.

Now, as Helena presses against Myka, she knows it will not make the slightest bit of difference what room they are in.

****

Myka thinks it’s funny that she has clearer memories of Artie and Vanessa’s wedding than she’s going to have of her own. She hasn’t had a thing to drink (and barely anything to eat), but the entire experience is a blur of handshakes and the word “congratulations” and Helena occasionally appearing at her side and kissing her, and then more handshakes and congratulations and Pete picks her up and whirls her around in a giant hug, and Leena hugs her and says “ask Helena about what really happened with the cat,” and Mrs. Frederic is beaming at her, and so is Caturanga (and they look like they’re old friends too, suddenly, even though Myka’s sure she introduced them to each other earlier this evening), and Chief Lattimer is saying how pleased and proud she is, and Steve is whispering in her ear about how he and Liam might do this same thing, if he can somehow muster the courage to ask him (Myka recommends pain meds and a reaction to anesthesia), and Steve laughs, but then Liam whispers almost exactly the same thing to her, and Myka says to them, since at some point they’re both standing in front of her, “I think you’re engaged now. Talk it out.”

And there is a pile of gifts, every one of which that’s from anybody at the firehouse has something to do with goats.

Myka dances with Helena, their first dance, and she feels more drunk than she ever has. She feels more in love, more grateful, more blessed, more everything. She marvels at Helena’s eyes, her hair, the body she’s holding. She kisses Helena, and it’s astonishing that she can do this, that they have the lives they are having, that they are growing into. Astonishing, unbelievable, that they are breathing in and out and doing it together.

They decide to leave the crowd sooner rather than later. On their way out, they see Artie and Vanessa, who assure them that they did the same thing.

“But you see,” Vanessa tells Myka, “why I didn’t care what you wore.”

“I’m still working on the flip-flops,” Artie says.

“Get her a goat,” Myka advises.

They pass Tracy in the lobby. “Mom and Dad went up a little while ago,” she says.

“Did they have a good time?” Helena asks.

“Mom did. She said the food was delicious. Hard to tell with Dad, of course, but he did get to talk books with Mr. Caturanga.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Myka says. On impulse, she hugs Tracy. It’s the first time they’ve hugged since… since they were teenagers. “And I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Tracy says. “Helena, you might be the best thing that’s ever happened to our family.” Her eyes get wide. “And now you’re my sister-in-law! I honestly hadn’t even thought about that.”

“That’s… actually… I hadn’t thought about it either,” Helena says. “But I think I like the idea.”

****

They don’t even touch, in the elevator. They don’t even touch, in the hallway outside the room.

They don’t even touch when they first enter the room… instead, they stand and face each other.

“Married,” Myka says.

“Married,” Helena affirms.

“Married to a doctor,” Myka tries.

“Married to an investigating agent of some sort. Who will eventually be mayor.”

“Or not,” Myka hurries to add.

“I don’t care,” Helena says. “Be a secret agent. Be a firefighter. Be mortal. Be whatever you have to be. I don’t care, as long as you’re mine.”

“Okay,” Myka says. “And you… wait. I’m supposed to ask you something.”

“You already did. That’s why this evening happened.”

“No, something about Dickens? Leena said I should ask you what really happened with the cat.” At this, Helena blushes. Myka is not entirely sure she’s ever seen that happen before. “So you know what she’s talking about?”

“I think I do,” Helena says. “It was just… do you remember, when I came to firehouse that day?”

“Right. For Dickens.”

“Yes, but you may recall that I didn’t actually know her, or of course we thought it was his, name then. Or rather, what you’d been calling her. Him.”

“But you said you had come because of Dickens. ‘About Dickens,’ you said.” Myka’s actually really confused now; she remembers the conversation, and Helena had definitely said that.

“Yes. I meant Dickens, the author. I had come to give you the Forster.”

“In exchange for the cat.”

“No. Simply to give you the Forster. I had no intention of taking the cat.”

“But why would you—”

“I simply wanted to apologize for being abrupt, and it seemed that you would appreciate the book. So I wanted to give it to you as some sort of a… salve to my conscience. And then I would be on my way.”

“So why did you—”

“Because of your face. Because I realized, after Leena explained the Dickens/Dickens situation, that you wanted someone, anyone, to take the cat. And so I… I wanted to… relieve you of that burden, I suppose.”

Myka shakes her head. “Let me see if I understand you. You’re basically saying that we’re standing here right now because you were talking about a book and I was talking about a cat? That we live together, with each other and with that cat, because I didn’t know what you were talking about?”

“I wouldn’t put it _precisely_ like that, but substantially… yes.”

“It’s a lesson,” Myka says, dazed, “about how everything, or almost everything, works out in the end.”

“Now _I_ don’t know what _you’re_ talking about.”

“You don’t have to,” Myka tells her. “All you have to do is come over here right now.”

Helena does.

****

excerpt from _The Life and Adventures of Charles Dickens Bering-Wells: Her relatives, friends, and enemies, Comprising all Her Wills and Her Ways, With an Historical record of what she did and what she didn’t; Shewing moreover who inherited the Elf on the Shelf, who came in for the Dowry goat, and who for the Rest of the Stuff Those Two Neglectful Humans Have the Nerve to Complain About Exhibiting Claw Marks. The whole forming a complete key to the House of Bering-Wells_.

Introductory, Concerning the Pedigree of the Bering-Wells Family

As no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can possibly sympathize with the Bering-Wells Family without being first assured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line from Adam and Eve and Bast; and was, in the very earliest times, closely connected with the agricultural interest (id est, a tree). If it should ever be urged by grudging and malicious persons, that a Bering-Wells, in any period of the family history, displayed an overweening amount of family pride, surely the weakness will be considered not only pardonable but laudable, when the immense superiority of the house to the rest of mankind and catkind, in respect of this its ancient origin, is taken into account….

Dickens Bering-Wells, while yet the youngest member of the Bering-Wells Family, was certainly its most celebrated. For did she not attract the attention of all who entered the Bering-Wells domain? There were primarily, to Dickens’s discerning eye, two of great importance: first, the delightful Caturanga, who was wont to proffer certain crumbs of delicacies and also addressed Dickens heartily as “Copperfield”;  and second, the charming gentleman with the commodious hands. He seemed to be known as “Seriously, Pete?” by many of his acquaintances. Dickens cared not for his appellation, but only for his cuddles. That he seemed to labor under the misapprehension that Dickens was herself a himself… well, Dickens had tired of attempting to correct humankind in this matter. Seriously-Pete’s hands were large and comfortable, regardless of the thickness of his skull….

Of a morning, “meow,” said young Dickens Bering-Wells.

“I filled your bowl,” said one or the other of the additional two Bering-Wellses.

Dickens spent much of her time attempting to distract the attention of one additional Bering-Wells from the other, or from the strange-smelling objects called “books” they found so engaging; early morning generally proved the most reliable hours during which to receive an acceptable response. Except on those mornings when the bedroom door was rudely closed upon her feline face—then Dickens took her claws to permeable surfaces, both to express her displeasure and to assure herself of said claws’ continued ability to express said displeasure.

After some such occasions, the larger Bering-Wells became confused, identifying Charles Dickens Bering-Wells as Honestly-Dickens-Can-I-Not-Spend-One-Morning-In-Bed-With-My-Wife-Without-You-Destroying-The-Apartment.

The smaller Bering-Wells was generally less disoriented. She laughed and referred to Dickens as Chuzzlewit (this was acceptable; not quite so as Copperfield, but) and at last would utter that magical incantation “I filled your bowl,” which was generally followed by Dickens finding comestibles—without even the necessity of the hunt!

Subsequently, a sated Dickens would locate her compatriots, Elf and Goat, and would engage in energetic toothed play or stimulating philosophical conversation.

The additional Bering-Wellses would observe Dickens for a time—surely the most pleasant time either would spend on any given day—and then would become difficult to distract once again. Always making noises, they were, nary a civilized “meow” among them. Dickens would curl tightly near Elf and Goat, ears tucked away, so as to be spared the clamor that was this strident “I,” this thunderous “love,” this deafening “you.”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original tumblr tags for part 20: yes the title and first paragraph are cribbed from Chuzzlewit, as they should be, given the history in this piece, though Bleak House is my own personal favorite, in any case I am still in love with these characters, and always will be, no matter what universe they are in


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